Lassiter Overheard
by Loafer
Summary: COMPLETE. Another Lassiet! Juliet overhears something startling from Lassiter, and it sends the unlikely but perfect pair in a new  but long overdue  direction.
1. Chapter 1: Shiny

**Disclaimer**: _**psych**_ not mine, Lassiter not mine, time not mine, youth not mine, keen eyesight not mine, and by the way, Roll Tide.

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: Well, yeah, it's another Lassiet. Variation on a theme, you know: how the unlikely but perfect pair work their way to a closer relationship. Set S6 but there is no Marlowe.

**CHAPTER ONE: SHINY**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet ended her relationship with Shawn Spencer on a Thursday evening just before eight. She didn't have much to say to him, really, as it turned out. She couldn't handle the narcissism, the way he disregarded her wishes, the way he treated Carlton, and even the way nothing, ever, _didn't_ involve food or in some way trampling on someone's privacy. She told him she cared about him and she didn't regret their time together, and when he reminded her she'd once explained that the best things in life weren't meant to come easily, she only said sadly that sometimes, having to fight that hard for them probably meant they weren't really the best things after all.

It was a short and miserable conversation and it hurt her that she was hurting him, but when she got home she knew she'd done the right thing.

She didn't tell Carlton for a week; she needed to absorb it herself. Shawn stayed away from the police station and fortunately Psych wasn't needed on any cases, and on Friday morning, she took a cup of coffee over to Carlton's desk and sat down in the chair next to it.

"Yes?" he inquired briskly, glancing up from the folders in front of him.

"I don't want to talk about this very much," she said quietly, "but I wanted you to be the first person I told. Shawn and I broke up." She waited for some gleam of satisfaction—some sign he was crowing internally.

But Carlton leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes showing only concern, and asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yes." She let out a breath. "Yes, actually."

"It was your decision?" His tone was neutral. Possibly.

Juliet gave him a look. "Yes. I returned to sanity."

A very slight smile curved his mouth. "Seriously. Are you okay? I know you… I know this was a…"

She knew he was trying to express that he supported her even though he hadn't understood (or liked) the relationship, and that was both honest and kind of him, and she also knew he dreaded awkwardness, and this meant he most likely wouldn't press for details. "I'm okay. I actually ended it last week but I had to settle things in my mind."

"Ah, that explains why he hasn't been around," he said, more to himself. Another curious glance. "Is he… I guess you can't really predict this, with Spencer, but is he going to be… hell, O'Hara," he said, throwing his pen down impatiently. "Is he going to take it like a man or is he going to be a pain in the whiny ass about it?" As soon as the question was out of his mouth he seemed to regret it.

But Juliet took no offense, because she knew with Carlton Lassiter, she could always count on a straight—if unfortunately phrased—question, to get to the point, to not waste time. She also appreciated that he was_ capable _of regretting how he asked, or even how he answered; Shawn seemed to have no filters at all nor any awareness of crossing lines. She smiled at her partner, appreciating him anew. "We'll find out together, I guess. I'm going to tell Chief Vick. I'm sure Henry knows already."

Carlton glanced over at Henry's empty desk. "He's kept quiet?"

"So far, but if he's got something to say, he'll say it."

"Like father, like son," he commented. "Thanks for telling me, O'Hara. And let me know if I need to run interference. On _either_ of the Spencers. Or Guster. Or anyone, really, for that matter." He gave her a crooked smile, and Juliet felt unexpectedly warm and hopeful.

She thanked him, took her coffee to her desk, and found a sudden need to blink away tears.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter kept an eye on Juliet for the next few weeks. She seemed all right to him, and one of the things he was confident about in life was that he knew his partner. Not that she couldn't keep secrets—he knew this very well—but he could always tell when her mood was off, her temper short. Long hours spent together over six years makes for good partners. Friends.

He savored that word in his mind for a moment. Friends.

Well, yes. She knew him as well as he knew her. She knew when to silently hand him Excedrin with his coffee, when to give him a look or a word to get him back on track instead of succumbing to his irritation, when to leave him alone and when to suggest lunch someplace quieter than usual, where he could decompress.

Of course he loved her, he explained to his curious mind; who wouldn't love her? She was lovely and kind and the best partner he'd ever had, and she'd put up with him longer than any other woman including his ex-wife. She was also beautiful and gentle and good with her gun and she had the prettiest eyes and smelled wonderful and… he stopped the litany, shaking his head.

The main thing was that she was off-limits, no less so sans Spencer than with him. She would always be off-limits, and he was quite sure that even with her generous spirit it had never crossed her mind to look at Carlton Lassiter as anything other than her partner. Which meant she was better off, he concluded; certainly she could do better, and had before.

Still, he watched her as the weeks unfolded, trying to see how the breakup with Spencer had really affected her, and she seemed to be all right. A little touch of regret, now and then, as Spencer and Guster started coming around again to work on cases for the SBPD, but just as much annoyance as regret, because Spencer seemed to be determined to take the 'business as usual' route, and never once reduced his flailings and rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness commentary while working a case.

One day while Spencer was trying to sweet-talk McNab into giving up his lunch, Lassiter drew Guster aside and asked bluntly, "How is he?"

Guster was surprised. "_You're_ interested in Shawn's well-being?"

Lassiter scowled. "I'm interested in _O'Hara's_ well-being, and if that means finding out how Spencer's doing, so be it." Reading Gus' suspicious look, he tried again. "We both want the best for our partners, Guster."

Gus relented. "Yeah. I think he's okay. He gets what he did and he gets that it's too soon to try to win her back."

Lassiter's gut tightened. Win her back? God forbid.

"He's been out on a date, so that's good, right?" Guster continued.

"It's great. Wait. Will there be a _second_ date?"

Shrugging, Gus said, "Eh. He's thinking about it."

Most likely the _girl_ was thinking about it too, Lassiter snarked to himself. But then again, Spencer had won Juliet and before her Abigail, so obviously he had _some_ skill. He went back to his desk feeling suddenly ridiculous: Spencer, with his lousy track record of keeping relationships alive, at least had more options than Lassiter did. And Juliet had seen something in him. Who had seen anything in Lassiter?

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet sat in a booth at a bar she didn't want to be in. Her friend Nadia—more of an acquaintance, really—had talked her into coming out with her on this rainy Friday night. They were neighbors who met up on the sidewalk sometimes; Nadia was about her age and newly divorced and friendly enough, and after one lengthy sidewalk chat, Nadia had suggested an evening out. Just the girls. Etcetera.

With laundry and household chores done and no particular interest in watching TV or reading, Juliet had agreed, and now here she sat alone while Nadia was at the bar chatting up a redheaded stockbroker.

It had been an hour, and the music was too loud and Juliet really wasn't in the mood. _You're thirty, and already feeling too old for the bar scene?_ It wasn't that. But everyone here had one of three primary motives: get drunk, get laid, or both; and having drunken sex with strangers had never been Juliet's thing.

A waiter stopped at the booth behind hers and said, "Well there ye are! Thought you weren't comin' in again after the last time."

"Takes more than multiple arrests in a bar brawl to keep me away, Mac. You fixed up the place, I see."

The voice sounded familiar. Familiar, hell; she'd know Carlton's voice anywhere. Juliet smiled. She'd rather be here with _him_ than with Nadia.

"Oh, aye, the insurance came through right off. We weren't closed more than three, four nights. Are ye drinkin' the usual?"

"Of course."

The waiter seemed to pause. "Far be it from me to ask such a forward question, laddie, but are ye all right?"

"No worse than usual. Actually, I _should_ be happy."

Juliet pondered that for a second: she hadn't noticed anything unusual in his behavior or demeanor lately.

"And why's that? That ye should be but aren't?"

"For one thing, my fine Irish barkeep, I am a product of my upbringing. There's really never a time when I'm allowed to be happy. In fact, I don't even trust happy. Happy is for other people."

Juliet smiled again. She wished she could find a way somehow to make Carlton see the good things in life. She wished that as much as he trusted her already, he'd trust her more and let her in past his considerable defenses.

Mac laughed and obviously settled into the seat across from Carlton. "But if ye were _allowed_ to be happy, what would ye be happy about tonight?"

Carlton didn't answer at first; she heard the ice clinking in his glass. "It's nothing new, Mac. Nothing you haven't heard a variation on a thousand times before."

"Try me, laddie. Put a spin on it to make it fresh if ye want."

Her partner sighed—a sound which traveled clearly. "Okay. The woman I love recently broke up with her boyfriend."

Juliet froze. Absolute total stillness. Every other noise in the bar faded away; her ears were completely attuned to the conversation in the next booth.

"Ahhhhh, and you should be happy because she's free now, is that it?"

No answer.

"But you're not happy because… you think you still can't have her?"

"I could never have her," Carlton said flatly. Another sound of ice; he must have downed his drink.

"And why's that? Ye're a fine-looking Irishman and you always pay your bar tab."

"When a woman's not interested, she's not interested, Mac. This one's never been interested in me and never will be. Never could be." He set the glass down hard on the table. "Ironically, if any woman _were_ ever going to give me a chance, it'd be her. Biggest heart west of the Mississippi. Best heart," he said more softly.

Juliet's eyes were burning, and her heart was pounding, and absolutely everything in her world had just flipped onto its side in shock.

"Then don't give up hope, boy-o. A big heart can always find room for a needy one. Hang on there, I'll get you a refill." Mac climbed out of the booth and went to the bar, and Juliet sank into her seat.

_Oh my God. _

_Carlton loves me._

_He loves me._

_And I …_

_I don't…_

_I don't mind_.

Nadia came bounding back to the booth with fresh drinks and started waxing rhapsodic about the stockbroker, and Juliet pretended to listen to her, but all she could think of was her partner sitting in the next booth and what he had said.

She didn't know when he left. She only knew that suddenly multiple voices were coming from that booth, so he must have gone out quietly before Mac returned. She knew he hadn't seen her, and Nadia never said her name. It was a relief that he wouldn't have to be embarrassed.

The stockbroker sauntered over and Juliet said her goodbyes, telling Nadia she was done for the night. Nadia didn't mind. Neither did the stockbroker.

It took a long time to convince herself not to drive straight to Carlton's place.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter got into work Monday morning in a reasonably un-foul mood. The neighbors had been quiet, he'd bested his record at the shooting range on Saturday, and on Sunday when he stopped after his morning run to pick up coffee, the barista had smiled and told him he had pretty eyes. Not that 'pretty' was a word he wanted to hear, but he chose to accept the compliment in the completely insincere spirit of commerce in which it was given.

But as the day wore on, he began to realize something was amiss, and after quietly contemplating everything he'd seen and heard for the day, the 'amiss' turned out to be a _miss_ – Miss O'Hara.

She was behaving oddly toward him.

Oddly… Lassiter strove to define 'oddly' in this setting. She was pleasant, but not too perky. She was business-like, but not aloof. She was… dammit, what was she?

At the point he understood that he had _no_ idea what was different (not her hair, still golden and upswept; not her makeup; she glowed as usual; not her clothes), they were on their way to talk to a prominent citizen about his claim that aliens had broken into his attic ("so for a change it's not _bats_ in the belfry," Lassiter had groused, and Juliet laughed, and he always liked making her laugh because it made him feel there was hope for him, if not with her, than with some other woman, some day… not that he would ever want anyone else).

"What's wrong, O'Hara?" he asked brusquely.

She turned and gave him a wide-eyed look, and her eyes were such a beautiful dark blue, almost gray-blue; he didn't know what they were but he loved them. "What do you mean?"

He stopped for a red light and turned to face her. "I mean, what's wrong? You're in a funny mood. I don't know what it is, but I know it's not normal."

"I'm abnormal?" Faint smile.

"Don't deflect," he warned her.

"Carlton, you know you don't like to talk about personal problems."

"Of course I don't. No one does. But you're my partner and I…" He stopped himself before saying the word 'care.' "I'm concerned."

"Everything's fine," she assured him, her smile gentle. "In fact, everything's really good."

He eyed her suspiciously for a moment.

Then it hit him.

She had met someone.

Instantly partly sick and partly stone, he faced forward again, feeling himself ice over.

"Carlton," she said, "I mean it. I'm not stonewalling you. I just… I just feel good about some things I didn't know I could feel good about, and—what's wrong?"

She was peering at him, reaching out to touch his arm, and he collected himself. "I'm glad to hear it. About time you picked up your social life."

Juliet laughed. "What? I don't have a social life. What are you talking about?"

The light changed and he hit the gas a little too hard, jerking the car forward. "Nothing. I thought maybe you were dating again. That would explain the good mood."

She was silent for a moment, and his heart sank.

But then she said quietly, "You're the only man in my life, Carlton."

His hands clenched on the wheel. Why the hell had he started this conversation in a moving vehicle? No place to run. "That must be depressing," he finally said, sensing her stare but not having the nerve to meet it.

"Actually," and her voice was mild in the way tungsten steel is sort of sturdy, "I consider it a very good thing."

He whipped his head around and stared back at her.

To his surprise, she laughed. "My God, sometimes those eyes of yours are fierce. Like giant blue spotlights. It's as if you have X-ray vision."

Funny, he might have said the same thing about her. He wrenched his gaze from her face to the road ahead, and thanked God they were just a block from their destination.

But Juliet said, "Carlton?"

He knew he was done for. "O'Hara?"

"You have no other comment about what I said?"

He put the car in park and pocketed the keys. "You think my eyes are freakish. Got it."

"What? No!" She grabbed at his arm before he could get out, and he reluctantly faced her. "You have remarkable, perceptive, and completely gorgeous eyes. _That's_ what I said."

Lassiter swallowed. "Don't say nice things to me."

"Why not?"

Dammit, why was she like this today? "I don't… I can't… you know… just get out of the car, O'Hara. We have a whack job to talk to." He was out on the sidewalk a second later, and glanced over at her uncertainly. She seemed composed enough, and might even be willing to drop the subject. Whatever the hell the subject was.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet took a look around the living room in the two-story home, thinking it was as interesting as the owner, John Galway. He didn't seem much like a 'whack job,' despite Carlton's assumption. He was calm, rather studious but not nervous. He was also a cousin of the mayor's, which is why _they_ had been asked to come talk to him.

The walls were covered with paintings of seascapes. The color scheme was blue and green; the knick-knacks were ocean-oriented, and Mr. Galway himself was wearing a blue sweater over his blue jeans.

Nothing, she thought idly, to compare to the color of Carlton's eyes, and she stole a glance at him. She hadn't meant to agitate him in the car; she'd had in mind to simply let him know he was _the_ key male in her life and in her eagerness she'd forgotten how skittish he could be. Put a camera in his face and he'd puff up, but one-on-one and he was almost… shy. Masked by gruffness, of course.

Carlton was at present eyeing Mr. Galway with outright disbelief, and Juliet knew she had to step in. With a hand to Carlton's arm, she maneuvered between him and the homeowner and asked, "Will you show us the attic?"

He led the way, and she could feel Carlton behind her, radiating _this-is-a-waste-of-time-this-is-a-waste-of-time-this-is-a-waste-of-time_ until she turned on the stairs and hissed, "Stop it," and his expression became one of surprise, because he always forgot she could read his mind.

_I wish I _could_ read it_. She had spent the weekend deeply embroiled in her thoughts about what she'd overheard and what it meant and what she should do and what she could do and what he would _let_ her do. The latter was the tallest hurdle by far.

She'd always cared for him more than she should. Even before he saved her at the clock tower, in fact, but that morning had been a cornerstone. Still, it was such an old story, falling for the man you spent the most time with, the man you couldn't have because the longevity of your career depended upon staying distant. She'd gotten so used to thinking of him as unavailable—because there was no way he would jeopardize his _own_ career again—that in time she'd learned to think of her attraction to him as something she would one day get past.

Only that day hadn't come, not even while she was with Shawn, and since she'd been in that booth a few days ago, it didn't look like it would be coming any time soon.

Mr. Galway's attic was large and spacious, partly furnished and suitable, she thought idly, for renting out to a student.

It also had a shattered window in the north wall, and what appeared to be dozens and dozens of deck prisms on the floor amid the broken glass. The blue-green of the myriad prisms reflected the light from the blue sky through the window, and it was actually a rather hypnotic and soothing sight.

"Deck prisms," Carlton said, without emphasis. "I used to have one of those."

"These aren't mine," Mr. Galway assured them. "I've only got one, down in my study, and it's still there. These showed up last night."

"I count… forty-two." Carlton stepped closer, avoiding the broken glass. "They're all neatly placed, upright and undamaged. Did you touch anything?"

"Absolutely not. When I saw the lights and heard the crash, I… well, I left the house and didn't come back until this morning."

Juliet frowned. "Lights? A crash? When was this exactly?"

"10:13," he said confidently. "The light came through my kitchen window while I was washing up. It was blue and white and completely blinding. While I was trying not to stare at it, I heard the crash from upstairs, and a few seconds later, the light disappeared and everything was deathly quiet."

"You didn't call the police." Carlton's tone was again skeptical.

"No. I didn't see the point. Besides, I thought it would be better to remove myself until daylight."

_Aliens don't like daylight, I guess_, Juliet thought. "So you left the house empty until when?"

"Nine a.m. sharp."

Carlton bent down and nudged a prism with his pen. "How do you know these arrived last night and not at some point after you left?" _Punks_, he was thinking; Juliet could almost feel that conclusion in his head.

Galway blinked. "Well. I set the house alarm, and it wasn't tripped when I got home. If anyone came in after... they… did, it was either through that window or by somehow bypassing the system."

Juliet treaded carefully to the window and peered out. The back yard sloped down and made the window a good thirty feet off the ground, with no ledges, decks or other means for someone to get in without a ladder. She decided to say it before Carlton did. "And you think aliens did this because…?"

"Detective, there are forty-two deck prisms on my attic floor under a window broken at 10:13, and both of those numbers are well-known to be associated with aliens. I've checked the ground at the back of the house and there's no sign a ladder was used."

"We'll check that too," she said mildly, a bit impressed at his authoritative delivery of a completely ridiculous statement.

"However, 10:13 is only associated with the man who created _The X-Files_," Carlton said with unusual calm. "It's his birthday."

Juliet looked at Carlton with the same surprise as Galway.

Carlton shrugged. "Who _didn't_ watch that show once in a while?" He checked the glass edges of the window and then took a closer look at the prisms. "Also, I think forty-two is the meaning of life, which comes from _The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy_, if I'm not mistaken. At any rate, I don't see anything here which could have broken the window. All the prisms are intact."

"You're saying that one prism broke through and the rest were hurled in after?" Now it was Mr. Galway who was skeptical. "With no marks to the back of the house? Every throw perfect? Every prism landing undamaged in an upright position right in this spot?"

"It's no worse than _your_ theory," Carlton muttered, and Juliet suppressed a smile. "Okay, at the very least it's vandalism. Let's go out back."

In the yard, staring up at the house and the broken window, they concluded Galway was correct: no marks on the siding or shutters, no marks on the ground where a ladder might have been placed, and from down here, no obvious signs that anyone went in from the roof. They'd have to get someone on-site to do a closer inspection and take photos, and this is how they left things with the man.

Juliet called in a request for a team to come out and check the roof, the siding and the prisms themselves, and after they'd checked out the fully-functional house alarm, she and Carlton got back in the Vic and sat for a minute.

"Odd," he said. "Even for creative punks, it's odd."

"He could have done it himself. He could have broken the window any number of ways from outside, planted the prisms, and made up the rest."

Carlton looked at her sharply. "You're turning into me. Aren't you the one who's supposed to be more open-minded about this kind of crap?"

Juliet scoffed. "You taught me to consider the _human_ suspect first. And come on, why would aliens go to this much trouble? To leave deck prisms in the home of a man obsessed with the sea?"

"Why would _anyone_ go to that much trouble? Why would Galway?" he countered.

"Maybe you called it before we got here, partner. Maybe he's a 'whack job.'"

Carlton gave her one of those rare grins which said… which said he _liked_ her. It said he appreciated her knowing him well enough to turn something back on him. It said so much more than he could possibly have imagined, and it brightened his amazing blue eyes even more.

She sighed privately. Somehow she had to figure out how to bridge the gap between them.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	2. Chapter 2: Gorgeous

**CHAPTER TWO: GORGEOUS**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter couldn't help but dwell on the remark Juliet made before they got to Galway's house.

He _tried_ not to dwell. He did everything he _could _not to dwell, but dammit, the woman had used the word 'gorgeous' about his eyes. 'Gorgeous,' by pretty much every standard of which he was personally aware, was considered a big compliment. It far surpassed the barista's casual 'pretty eyes' remark. Who the hell cared what the barista thought anyway; this was _Juliet_ he _wasn't_ dwelling on.

Sure, she'd complimented him before, on a new tie or suit, but 'gorgeous' was not a word she'd used in the past. Not about _him_.

She liked football player types and uber-suave men... and much too recently, Spencer. Lassiter grimaced at his computer screen.

Gorgeous?

Damned weird.

And oh yeah, that little 'only man in my life' remark. That was interesting. But it was easily explained as being a reference to not dating anyone at the moment, and after all, they did spend every day together, sometimes in close proximity, one-on-one, for hours on end.

And lookie there: he was _dwelling_. Annoyed with himself, he grabbed his coffee mug and strode across the hall for a refill. It was nearly five, but there was no bad time for coffee, and it's not like he'd be going home any time soon, let alone trying to sleep.

Juliet turned from her desk. "Got the report in on Galway's house." She joined him by the coffee urn, reading the sheet of paper. "It's clean. No prints on the prisms, no sign of any activity on the roof, the eaves, the siding."

Lassiter stirred creamer into his mug, but when she glanced at the sugar bowl he manfully resisted adding more than one spoonful. "It's still not enough to make me think it was _aliens_."

"We should look into his background and associates—and his interests. This could all be a huge prank. If anyone else had or figured out his alarm code, the prisms could have been planted at almost any time. We need to talk to him again."

He felt himself scowling. "I don't want to talk to him again. Let's send McNab and Dobson."

To his surprise, she smiled and agreed. "At the most, it's a broken window. He says nothing was stolen, and if he sells the prisms, the cost of replacing the window might take care of itself."

It occurred to him she was standing closer than usual, and he held his coffee mug up as if it were a shield.

"You used to have a deck prism?" she asked, curious.

"I did, in a nice illuminated base. One of my college professors gave it to me for helping him with a project." _Why did she have to smell so good?_

"What happened to it?"

He chose his words carefully. "It got broken." Seriously. Lilacs, peaches... whatever it was, she smelled too good. He wondered if there was a department regulation against tempting your male coworkers with pleasant scents.

Juliet was surprised. "How so?"

Lassiter eyed her over the top of his mug. "Angry wife with a sledgehammer."

He could not have been more shocked to hear her swift near-whisper of "Bitch!" Louder—her color high as if she were truly personally affronted—she demanded, "Why would she destroy something beautiful that you valued?"

"_Because_ I valued it," he said simply. "It was one of the events leading to the separation." He was mesmerized by her expression: she clearly, sincerely, wanted to hurt Victoria. "It's okay, O'Hara. It was a long time ago."

"What else did she destroy?" Her eyes were afire.

Lassiter, before he could stop himself, reached out to touch her arm. Soothingly. Crap, what was wrong with him? "O'Hara. It's okay. I'm over it. I promise."

She relaxed, slowly, and had no idea how her concern and anger moved him. "Sorry," she murmured. "It just pisses me off when people lash out like that. I mean, sure, I know you probably weren't exactly Prince Charming, but..." She stopped, and looked at him earnestly. "Wait. You didn't do anything like _that_, did you?"

"No. The worst I did was shoot the figurines, but technically those were mine." His hand was still on her arm. What the hell? _Why_ was his hand still on her arm?

"Come again?" A small smile; she was calmer. And she didn't seem to mind his hand on her arm at all.

"I idiotically sent Victoria some of those frou-frou little figurines after we were separated. She sent them back with a terse note reminding me we were separated, and I thought it would be appropriate, as well as therapeutic, to blow them to smithereens."

Her eyebrows went up, and her smile was broader. "Did it work? Oh wait-I remember that! I came looking for you in the shooting range that day. You _did_ seem happier."

"I was," he agreed, and dropped his hand.

But Juliet, confoundingly, put her hand on his arm then. "You're in a better place now, you know. You're a better man than you were then."

Later he never understood what possessed him, but the words which seemed to fly out of his stupid, stupid mouth were sincere: "You're a better woman than she _ever_ was."

Juliet gaped.

He fled.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Tuesday morning was rainy, and Juliet shook her umbrella out before she entered the police station. Carlton was coming out of the coffee alcove when she got to her desk, and she was dead sure he remembered running from her yesterday, just as she was sure he knew _she_ remembered as well. She only smiled, because having him compliment her was a good thing. Rare, to be sure, but definitely good.

He looked only moderately uncomfortable, and thrust a folder into her hand. "Galway called Vick and asked for us personally. He had another alien visitation last night."

"Ooh. More prisms?"

"Nope. Something bigger, he said, but we have to come see it."

She judged his expression to be not pissed off. "Carlton, it's not like you to humor a possibly crazy person."

"But you're smiling that I am."

"I'm smiling because it's a nice day," she countered.

Carlton frowned at her rain-spotted jacket. "It's raining."

_But I'm looking at you_, she thought, _so it's nice_. "You want to go now?"

"Might as well. You want coffee first?"

"Starbuck me."

They stopped on the way, and he bought her coffee, which was unexpected and nice and she felt hopeful that maybe this bridging-a-gap issue wouldn't be as hard as she imagined.

Mr. Galway met them at the front door and insisted they wipe their shoes and leave their wet coats in the foyer. "Here," he said, a touch more agitated than yesterday. "Here! Explain _this_!"

Sitting in the middle of the living room carpet was a circle of blue gazing balls.

Carlton put his hands in his pockets and considered; Juliet stepped past him to take a closer look.

They were all about the size of basketballs, blue mirror surfaces reflecting her shoes as she bent to inspect the nearest one.

"There are thirteen," Galway said defiantly. "Thirteen!"

Carlton eyed him. "Another important number? I can't wait for the 666 moon rocks arrive."

"Detective!" Galway snapped. "This is not amusing. They've been here again. In my house. While I _slept_."

"Aliens?" Juliet wished she'd been able to drink more of her coffee. "You discovered these this morning?"

"Yes. I went to bed at eleven, like always; I came down here at seven, like always. The house alarm was set, as always, and yet these... these objects were arranged here like you see them. I've checked the windows and doors and there's not even any footprints in the carpet!"

"Looks brushed," Carlton commented, and he was right; the carpet a few feet out from each ball appeared to have been brushed or smoothed, as if whoever (whatever) placed them did so at arm's length.

"Mr. Galway," Juliet said with all the politeness she could muster this early on a caffeine-light rainy day, "are you absolutely, positively, certain no one else has access to your alarm code?"

He turned his aggravation on her. "Detective O'Hara, I am an intelligent, educated, reasonable man. If you think I would leave a window open and then be surprised when my TV goes missing, you are misjudging me. I cannot imagine that I am acquainted with _anyone_ who would find it worthwhile to plant deck prisms and gazing balls in my home."

"So that's a no?" Carlton drawled. "Look, Mr. Galway, try to see this from our—"

"No. You try to see it from _mine_." Galway was irate now. "I am a tax-payer and thus entitled to the full resources of the police department!"

_And you happen to be the mayor's cousin_, Juliet thought, _and are not above using that connection_. "You're getting them," she assured him. "But we have to ask all the questions, not just the ones you want to hear."

Carlton glanced at her; she thought it was with approval. "The thing is, what's more logical? Someone screwing around with you or actual _aliens_ leaving random objects in your house?"

"But these aren't random! 42 prisms? At 10:13? Thirteen gazing balls? On the fourth day of the fourth week of the fourth month?"

With a sigh only Juliet heard, Carlton turned away from the man and gave her a look suggesting he was about to say something he knew it was best not to say. He approached, to go around her to see the whole room, and his hand brushed against hers as he passed.

He seemed to pause _just there_… and instinctively, she clasped his hand briefly, to calm him, to show support, and at least partly because she'd wanted to touch him ever since he uncharacteristically touched her arm yesterday.

Carlton tensed, but squeezed her hand lightly in return, and she moved out of his way to face Galway directly.

Later she was impressed that she spoke coherent English to him, because the all-schoolgirl part of her psyche was squee-ing about that simple touch. When had they ever touched like that? In six years?

Then she thought, crap, did Galway see it? Probably not, she assured herself. She'd been between the two men, so their hands were hidden by her body.

Meanwhile, Galway was staring at her expectantly. He'd said something about the numbers and she was pretty sure she'd asked him about his regular visitors.

Carlton saved her by asking, "What's the significance of the date?"

Galway snarked, "You don't have a TV or book reference for that?"

"Would I ask if I did? Look, you don't want us to waste your time, then don't waste ours."

"Fine. I don't know. I just know it has to mean _something_."

"Mr. Galway," Juliet intervened, "if you are at all familiar with the public perception of alien visitation, you have to know this isn't typical. This is just objects placed in a home. The broken window is actually an anomaly; why would an alien need to break a window? Especially if no window had to be broken for these gazing balls to be placed?"

"More likely a poltergeist," Carlton mused.

She didn't know what was odder; Galway's theory or Carlton throwing out these non-Carlton observations so easily. But if he was about to say they call in Shawn—

"I think I know who can help us," he said, with no particular tone. "The SBPD has a consultant who specializes in odd cases like this." He would not look at Juliet, but she spotted the tiniest smile at the corner of his mouth. He advised Galway not to move anything until someone had come out to take photos, and said they'd be in touch about the consultant. "Oh, and change your alarm code just in case."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter, back in the Crown Vic, gave a quick look to Juliet as she sipped her still-hot coffee. He wasn't at all sure about what happened back there.

She had, on occasion, touched his arm or grabbed his elbow to get his attention or head off his rising irritation when they were talking to people who annoyed him, but she'd never touched his hand like that. He hadn't even been _that_ annoyed; in fact, he was pretty sure he hadn't been even a quarter as rude to Galway as he was capable of being.

He could still feel her cool fingers against his. It was nice. It was... intimate.

Dammit, he couldn't afford to think like that.

"So," she said far too casually, "do you seriously think Shawn can help on this case, or were you just trying to get out of there?"

He shrugged. "He's good at reading people."

"Galway is the mayor's cousin," she reminded him. "Pissing him off is a surefire way to get Vick pissed off at _us_."

"Well, that's why we're going to run it past Henry first."

"Huh. You're being very reasonable today."

When Lassiter looked at her, she was smiling. "Is that a problem?"

"Nope."

"You're a good influence on me," he suggested, and he meant it, and knew it was true.

Juliet laughed. "Not always."

"Yes, always." He wasn't sure why he felt so fierce about it, and the way she was looking at him now—touched, pleased—wasn't helping his funny mood.

She didn't say anything; she only smiled and sipped coffee.

But when they got back to the station and he held the main door open for her, she did it again.

She touched his arm gently as she went by, sliding her hand down to clasp his for a second, and he felt heat flood his face. Like he was a damn teenager, trying not to get caught crushing on a girl. Dammit.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet kept her back to Carlton for the next few hours. She was blushing furiously, nonstop, to the point that McNab asked her if she was too warm when he dropped some casefiles at her desk.

She couldn't believe she'd touched Carlton like that.

_Oh come on, it's not like you grabbed his butt. You only touched his hand_.

_Again? Twice in one morning? Really?_ Really_, O'Hara?_

_Well, you know he loves you—_

_Wait, though._ Do _we know he loves YOU? Couldn't he have meant some other woman who recently broke up with her boyfriend?_

_Reality check._ You _may see his potential, and granted, he's not that talkative about his personal life so maybe there_ could _be someone else... but come on. There's no way he meant any other woman_.

Juliet sighed and punched in some report data angrily. Why didn't other women see what she saw in him? His intelligence, his diligence, his perseverance, his blue, blue, blue eyes, his long fingers, his lean build, the occasional wry smile which seemed only for her. The way they could communicate with just a look sometimes; the way he knew what kind of day she was having (and vice versa) before she even had to tell him. She even liked the way he scowled at crooks, and was oddly charmed when he got puffed up about something, maybe because she knew the puff came from a greater insecurity, and rather than thinking less of him, she was pleased that he could have pride about anything.

And maybe she was merely an addled moron who'd been ogling her partner too long.

She sighed again. It didn't help.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter was terrified.

As the morning progressed, and Juliet kept herself away from him, he imagined any number of scenarios, all bad, none of them leading to him carrying her off to his bed (yes, carrying, every last foot of every last mile to his place AND up the stairs).

He was an idiot. An idiot.

She wasn't avoiding him exactly but there was a problem. She was embarrassed about touching his hand. She figured he was obsessing about it (who, _Lassiter_?) and wanted him to calm down before she spoke to him again. She wished she hadn't done it. She'd mistaken him for a mannequin. What? That made no sense even to him.

Six years.

Six years of pining, if you wanted to call it that, and he didn't _want_ to call it that because it was pathetic, and now, this week, he had been reduced to idiocy simply from a smile, a kind word about his freakish eyes, and a touch. Or two.

He rubbed his temples hard and Henry Spencer looked up from his laptop.

"Migraine?"

"Close enough."

Henry grinned. "Girl trouble?"

Lassiter got up and walked away without a word to get more coffee.

But this put him in Juliet's territory, and she suddenly turned her chair. "Are you ready to go to lunch?"

They were coming at him from all sides! People who could read his minds! Like those bastardly squirrels, they were—and then he looked at her. She was smiling. She was pretty. She seemed to like him on at least some basic level. She was _so_ pretty. And her smile, on those perfect lips, made her lovely eyes that much more— "Yes," he said.

"May I drive?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, and that's when he knew he was completely putty in her hands.

He didn't want to think about what else her hands could do.

Aw, crap. Too late.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	3. Chapter 3: Numbers

**CHAPTER THREE: NUMBERS**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

They were within feet of the Crown Vic when Juliet heard a voice she really did not want to hear.

"Jules! Lassie! Hold up!"

Damn, she thought, glancing at Carlton, but he looked impassive. Which means he was pissed and trying not to show it. Or it meant he was relieved and trying not to show it. One way or the other, it meant he was trying not to show _something_.

Shawn and Gus loped up; she could see the Blueberry in the distance. Carlton said nothing, but she managed a polite greeting. It wasn't that she didn't want to see them (even Shawn), it was that she really damn well didn't want to see them _right now_.

"Hey, my dad says you're calling me in on some case about aliens attacking the mayor."

"Calling _us_ in," Gus corrected. "Psych."

"Calling psych-O," Shawn retorted. "So what's the story?"

"It has nothing to do with the mayor, almost certainly nothing to do with aliens, and we're going to lunch, so we'll talk to you later, okay?" She headed to the car.

But Shawn said, "Come on, Jules. Gus has some minor work thing later so if we're going to get a briefing, now's the time."

"That minor work thing is my quarterly sales review, Shawn. It's important!"

Juliet gave Carlton another glance. He was still impassive. But finally he spoke. "Fine. Let's get it over with."

She was disappointed, but he was probably right.

Shawn, however, was happy. "Sweet. Lunch?"

He shrugged, and when Shawn added, "Shotgun!" ignored him and got in the front anyway.

She'd had in mind to go to a quiet little place where she could look into Carlton's blue eyes and work up the courage to tell him whatever it would take to get _him_ to work up the courage to make a move (or accept a move), but Carlton suggested Flanagan's—the pub she and Nadia had gone to last Friday night.

So yeah, this was going to be weird.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter held open the door for Juliet and let the other men pass as well. He wasn't sure what had come over him, agreeing to lunch, except that he was a coward. Being alone with Juliet in his hypersensitive-to-everything-about-her frame of mind was probably not a good idea.

They were seated in one of the large booths; Spencer and Guster were next to each other, which put him sliding in next to Juliet, and suddenly the booth wasn't very large at all. At least he didn't have to look at her. That might be his undoing.

Although feeling her body heat next to his… he swallowed, and directed his attention to the menu handed to him.

"Aye, laddie, good to see _you_ again."

Lassiter looked up—it was the barkeep. "Waiting tables, Mac?" He suddenly flashed back to telling Mac that thing he'd told him which he'd rather not have flashed back on (or told him), but he was pretty sure Mac wouldn't blow his cover. Not that anyone would notice; Guster and Spencer were playing with straws and Juliet had her head in the menu.

"Short-staffed out front, but don't ye worry; the kitchen's ready for anything." He beamed at the others, tipping an imaginary hat to Juliet, and started away. "Oh, wait—" He tapped Lassiter on the shoulder. "Ye left yer credit card here the other night. Come up to the bar with me and let's suss out which one is yours."

Lassiter knew very well without even checking that he'd done no such thing (nor had enough to drink that night to have _forgotten_ such a thing), but he also knew when he was meant to be separated from the herd, and followed Mac to the far end of the bar.

Mac, who was fifty at best and not even red-headed, lowered his rich voice while pretending to sort through a box. "Now, it goes without sayin' it's none of _my_ business, but that lass with you. She's _the_ lass, am I right?"

He felt his cheeks warming. Damn that reflex, as well as Mac's memory. Refusing to give in to the urge to look over his shoulder, he merely nodded. "How could you tell?"

Mac's smile was huge. "Well, first of all, laddie, she's lovely, and that booth is a lot bigger than the amount of space ye were taking up in it."

Lassiter couldn't help it; he looked back at the booth and realized Juliet wasn't sitting against the wall but rather a good foot away, which explained why he'd been feeling her body heat so keenly.

"And second," Mac went on, grinning, "I'm an expert at recognizing this sorta thing."

Needing to get back some sense of being an adult, Lassiter asked abruptly, "Aren't you from Nebraska?"

"Aye, that I am." Mac rifled through the box.

"Then the accent is bogus?"

"Ach no, boy-o, the accent's authentic. I come from a long line of real-deal Irishmen; me own Da came here from the Emerald Isle when he was but a sprite."

"When _he_ was a sprite," Lassiter repeated. "So you spent _your_ formative years dropping 'ayes' and flinging 'laddies' around in Omaha?"

Mac grinned. "I only said the accent was _authentic_. I never said it was _mine_."

Lassiter couldn't help but grin. "Got it. Can we stop pretending you have my credit card?"

"Certainly. I just didn't know when you'd be in again, and I wanted to give your choice of girl a thumbs-up. In fact, I think I've seen her in here before." He frowned in the direction of the booth. "With that guy? The one with too much gel in his hair?"

"He's the ex," Lassiter said flatly.

"Well," Mac assured him with a wide smile, "she's not acting like that's an issue for _her_. And it's _you_ she's squeezing up next to, laddie. It may well be your situation isn't as bleak as you think."

His cheeks were warming again, but Lassiter wasn't good either at unloading on strangers when sober or at optimism in general, so he managed a smile, thanked Mac, and returned to the booth.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet, while Carlton called Mr. Galway to see about coming by, decided lunch hadn't been so bad. She had a new appreciation for sitting next to Carlton, Shawn hadn't been unduly embarrassing or awkward, and Mac the barkeep had been amusing on his subsequent visits to the booth.

She hadn't seen his face the night of Carlton's confession, but she did recognize him from previous visits, and she wondered if he remembered what Carlton had said or had blown it off as just another customer's alcohol-fueled ramblings.

Only Carlton hadn't been drunk. She knew it. He'd just been tired and honest and she wished she'd climbed over the top of her booth to get to him.

Right now, with his phone to one ear, he put his other hand down between them, gripping the seat, annoyed because he was trying to hear while Shawn and Gus were arguing about their check.

Juliet, her gaze purportedly on 'the boys,' put her hand down on top of Carlton's. Because honestly, why the hell not.

He left a few words out of his next sentence, suddenly flustered, and had to repeat himself.

She let her fingers intertwine with his…rather, he _let_ her intertwine her fingers with his.

It was her turn to be suddenly flustered when he turned his hand so he could clasp hers fully. Such a nice hand. Long slender fingers, strong and warm.

His voice was steady. She wasn't sure how. She knew _she_ couldn't have spoken sense at that point.

It was only thirty seconds, really, but it was the most exhilarating thirty seconds of her life so far.

"Okay," he said, disconnecting. "Let's roll." He let her go and exited the booth, helping her out of it with that same hand, his blue gaze intense.

For once, thank God, Shawn was oblivious, but then again, he and Gus were halfway out the door already.

She was glad to be at the wheel (still surprised Carlton had agreed to let her drive) because she needed the distraction from the distraction of being distracted by Carlton, not to mention wondering what was really going on in his head. She knew full well it would be hard for him to really let go of his code of honor, and she herself knew it was usually a bad idea to give in to urges about one's partner.

But Carlton was special. _She_ might only be short-yellow-bus special at the moment, but he was a man worth risking her career for, and the minute the thought hit her brain she knew she was officially done with the _process_ of falling for him: she had smacked into the wall of acceptance.

She was in love.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Before Lassiter rang Galway's doorbell, he turned to give Spencer what he knew was a very good steely-eyed glare. "This man is the mayor's cousin. If you piss him off, it won't just be me or O'Hara or even Chief Vick you have to worry about. You get it?"

Spencer's eyes got big—Guster's even bigger—and he nodded. "Got it. Full respect. Go."

Lassiter glanced at Juliet, who was staring at him with a look he couldn't place exactly, but she'd been confusing him all day so this was nothing new.

Galway let them in, and was obviously unsure what to make of Spencer, who looked around in his usual demented fashion and then asked to see the prisms in the attic. Guster followed them, and Lassiter turned to Juliet to stop her from going up as well.

He had to know. He was going to flat-out ask her what was happening between them.

But she spoke first, her eyes alight. "Numbers."

"Come again?" Somehow he thought that wasn't what she'd intended to say.

"Numbers! Galway's obsessed with them."

"Right," he agreed, shifting gears with difficulty (and perhaps a little relief). "10:13, 42, 13, all that. Even his bedtime—all very precise."

"So if _we_ noticed it, maybe someone else in his life has too. What does he do for a living?"

"He's retired," Lassiter said, "but I think he was an accountant."

"Figures. No pun intended." She looked around the room. "The prisms link to the seascapes. The gazing balls link to the blue theme. You know what else?" She faced him, excited. "Let's go out and look at the kitchen window again."

He followed Juliet outside, glad the rain was gone for the day, and they walked around the house to the back yard. The kitchen window was eye-level for him, not quite so for her. He looked around and spotted an electrical outlet a few feet away. "Galway said he saw the blinding light through this window at 10:13. I wonder if he's _usually_ in his kitchen at that hour?"

Juliet nodded. "Someone could have plugged in a light source and simply held it up to the window then. He'd never have seen anything in the dark from inside, and once the light was aimed at him, he couldn't have seen anything else."

"Then the crash from upstairs would have distracted him from the light, and that provided the time to escape." They grinned at each other. _This is why you are my best partner ever_, he thought. "Let's find out just how predictable our retiree is."

On their way back to the front, Lassiter spotted a teenager crossing the yard toward the house next door, pausing to give the Crown Vic the once-over. "Hat-boy," he called out sharply.

The teen stopped and waited for them to approach, pushing his ball cap further up on his forehead. "You're cops, right?"

Lassiter showed his badge. "You are?"

"Brett Tanner." He hooked a thumb to the other house. "I live there. Just cutting through the yard to bug the crap out of Galway."

Lassiter was thinking _hooligan_.

Juliet must have known, because she quickly asked, "Have you seen or heard anything unusual the past few nights?"

"Uh, I saw a guy wearing a tutu at the Taco Bell four blocks up." He smirked. "You mean about his 'visitations,' right? He's been unloading on my dad about it. Nah, I didn't see anything."

Lassiter looked him over. His smirk was interesting. Telling. "He's friends with your father?"

"Yeah, they used to work together. So he really thinks it's aliens?"

Juliet cleared her throat. "Does anyone around here have a problem with Mr. Galway?"

The kid laughed. "Nah. He's just… you ever see _Spongebob_? My kid sister watches it all the time. She says Squidward reminds her of Galway. Things have to be just the way he likes them, when he likes them. Guy hates change. He even freaks out about Daylight Savings Time."

"That's not entirely unreasonable," Lassiter started in, but Juliet nudged him. "Does Galway ever have visitors?"

"No way. Well, I guess I don't really know. I'm still in school. But I don't know of anyone other than my dad, and that's only because our house makes Galway crazy." He smirked again. "Not enough blue."

Blue, Lassiter thought. The color scheme of the house, the color of most of the prisms, the color of the gazing balls. Numbers. Interesting. Puzzling and interesting.

"Listen, I gotta get home so I can get ready for work."

"Where do you work?" Juliet asked politely.

"Decker's," he said, an odd look on his face. "I just clean up. Anyway, my dad'll know more about Galway." He waited for Lassiter's nod, and then took off.

They turned toward the house, and Juliet said, "I'll explain Spongebob later, but in the meantime, where would you go for forty-two deck prisms?"

"Or thirteen gazing balls?" (_How_ had she known he was going to ask what the hell a Spongebob was, let alone a Squidward?)

"Prisms in that quantity probably came from an online source. But gazing balls could be obtained at any large garden supply shop. Maybe not thirteen at one time, though."

"A lot of money to spend on a prank." Lassiter studied her. "So… those items might have been stolen."

"Which we can find out about," she agreed triumphantly. "Yes! I finally feel like we can get somewhere on this stupid case!"

Before he could ask _but what about this other thing between us_, Spencer and Guster came out of the house. Galway stood in the doorway glowering.

Lassiter abruptly felt dread. "Crap on a cracker. I should have known better than to leave Spencer alone in there."

Spencer said, "Hang on," and darted around the back of the house while Juliet asked Guster what they'd learned.

"For one thing, that man has no sense of humor." His tone—and his expression—indicated this was an unusually serious charge.

"You mean he really has no sense of humor, or only that his sense of humor is different from _Shawn's_?"

But Lassiter cut to the chase. "What did Spencer do, and exactly how angry is the mayor going to be when he calls Vick to tell her to fire us?"

Guster looked uncomfortable. "Well. Shawn did make more than one reference to the gazing balls being blue."

"Leaving out the word 'gazing'," Lassiter said wearily. "Right?"

"Uh, yeah."

Spencer came hurtling back toward them. "Okay! I've seen enough. We can go. Gus has to go to his little meeting."

"Shawn!" Gus protested. "I _will_ smack you."

"Enough," Lassiter snapped. "What's your 'read,' Spencer?"

"The spirits," he said dramatically, "haven't given me any insight into the who, but it's definitely not aliens. It's just someone who doesn't like the guy. Or thinks he needs deck prisms and blue balls. He's one _hard_ little man." He looked surprised when Juliet rolled her eyes and sighed. "What? Anyway, could his life be more regimented?"

Lassiter jumped on that. "Is it? He does things on a strict schedule?"

"Unvarying. He must be insane. Cup of tea at 9:45. Wash the kettle—wash, mind you, not just rinse—no later than 10:15. Check the doors, windows and alarm by 10:30. Take his evening pills by 10:40. Check email at 10:45. Check the—"

"I've heard enough," Juliet said, giving Lassiter a grin. "Thank you, Shawn. You've been very helpful."

"If we don't get fired for whatever you said to him in there, we'll be doubly grateful," Lassiter added in only a mid-level snark, and directed everyone to get in the damn car. This time he drove, and Juliet didn't even protest giving up the keys.

Back at the station, with Spencer and Guster well away, Lassiter and Juliet set McNab to the task of looking up thefts of gazing balls and/or prisms. They also waited for a summons to Vick's office (which never came; Galway must have decided to bide his time), and although Lassiter was still far too aware of Juliet, his urge to talk to her about the whole touching thing had abated.

There was always a chance he was hallucinating, and really, wasn't that better?

Besides that, they had actual other casework a bit more serious than overly-generous gift-giving faux aliens.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Late in the afternoon, Carlton was in the conference room spreading out crime scene photos from a murder the day before, and called to Juliet as she passed in the hall to come see.

Whoever used the room before Carlton had closed the blinds, and she made a decision which later she couldn't even justify: she closed the door behind her.

He looked up; he looked past her at the door, and he glanced at the windows. And then he was perfectly still, one hand poised over a photo.

Juliet sat in the chair next to his and glanced at the photo, willing to pretend at least briefly that everything was normal. She didn't feel normal. She felt like she was about to do something possibly stupid but completely inevitable and unutterably right.

After a pause, he managed, "See this spot here. I think it's where the vase was."

"The murder weapon," she agreed.

"That means the killer was standing near that when he picked it up and brained the victim. An weapon of impulse."

"Yes," she said. She could smell his faint aftershave, and knew her chair didn't have to be quite so close to his. _Though that'll make it easier in a minute_. His hair looked soft; she wondered about running her hand through it.

"So…" He stopped. He was staring at the photo, but Juliet knew he was attuned to her. She knew it partly because of their years working together, partly because she was equally attuned to him, and partly because she wanted it to be true.

"Carlton?"

"Yes?" He looked at her, his blue eyes at the same intensity they had been when they were leaving Flanagan's.

"Would you have dinner with me tonight?"

Long pause. He said—almost breathed it—"No."

Juliet held herself firm against the disappointment which flooded her.

"Juliet?" he asked, his voice low.

He'd said her first name. Hope rose. "Yes?"

"I meant to look this up earlier. When you're having a heart attack, is the pain going to be in your left arm or your right arm?"

She felt a smile tugging at her lips, and realized he was half-smiling too. Maybe not half. Maybe just a hint. "The left."

"Okay." His gaze hadn't left hers.

"Do you need preemptive CPR?"

He swallowed. "You're not going to call McNab in, are you?"

Her smile was full now, and his was two-thirds there. "No. I don't want anyone else with us right now."

"Good," he sighed. "Juliet. I don't understand what's going on."

She carefully, gently—slowly as if he might bolt—put her hand up to his warm cheek, and he tensed for a moment but allowed her touch. "Yes, you do."

"But I don't understand _why_," he tried again. "Why _now_."

She moved her thumb to trace his lips, shivering at the idea of it as well as the actual experience of it, and shockingly, Carlton captured her hand and kissed her wrist.

Collecting her heart back from where it had leapt across the room, she whispered, "Could you try to accept it?"

A hundred emotions seemed to cross his face, and at least one of them was fear. "I don't know. I don't—"

Juliet couldn't wait anymore, and she didn't want either of them to be afraid anymore either. She leaned in and kissed him. Just the lightest of kisses, really, her lips brushing his.

He only needed a second to respond, and it was worth all the angst of the past few days. His mouth was hot and utterly thrilling and she felt him sighing as he leaned into it. It felt like years of pent-up longing maxing out in one kiss. One most excellent _first_ kiss, worthy of the full Hallelujah chorus.

"Juliet," he murmured, "I—"

Someone knocked on the door.

Someone with colossally bad timing.

Someone she was going to kill later in a dark alley, in cold blood, with perfect enjoyment.

. . . .

. . .


	4. Chapter 4: Circles

**CHAPTER FOUR: CIRCLES **

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter sat in his apartment, lights out, a glass of Scotch close at hand, but he wasn't drinking.

He was one big live wire.

Chief Vick had been their interrupter, and why she'd bothered to knock at all he didn't know, but he was damned glad. Having the boss witness their kiss would have been a catastrophe beyond his comprehension. Even Juliet had been shocked by how close disaster had come—he'd seen it in her eyes, in the paling of her cheeks.

There had been a double homicide across town involving a stripper and a politician's wife, and he and Juliet had been sent out to the scene. There was no time for talk, no time to decompress, no time at _all_, and dozens of people between them for the next few hours.

They hadn't even gotten to go back to the station together, and once there, witness statements had kept them separate again.

In truth it was a typical night, and now it was nearly two a.m. and he was debating whether or not there was any point to going to bed. Between the adrenalin of the case and the post-Juliet-traumatic stress disorder, sleep was highly unlikely.

Well. That left the Scotch, and he downed it.

Now what the _hell_ was he supposed to do about Juliet?

Maybe nothing, if this wake-up call had done the trick.

Except it hadn't done the trick for _him_, because what he really wanted beyond shutting his brain down was to kiss her again. And again.

And again.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Events were conspiring, Juliet decided, to keep her from Carlton. But was it a warning from the fates? Or just a tease? _You have to _prove_ you want this, girl; and you have to know it'll never be easy_.

Carlton had been in fine form at the crime scene, insulting strippers and their 'handlers' just for starters. She knew he was frustrated and probably confused and that Vick nearly walking in on them kissing had seriously shaken him. It had shaken her too, but what really scared her was that he might withdraw from her completely now.

There was no way she could let that happen, but Carlton Lassiter had spent years building the walls she was trying to knock down, and she knew the little voice was right: this was never going to be easy.

When she got to the station in the morning, she waved at Carlton, already at his desk; he looked up and nodded but didn't smile. However, a few minutes later he appeared beside her with a folder of witness statements, plus a cup of coffee the way he knew she liked it.

"Thanks," she said, and studied his face. He looked tired, the blue-eyes heavy-lidded, and he looked remote. Damnably remote.

"The sketch artist put this together." He handed her a sheet. "Witnesses say it matches one of the bouncers, who happens to be related to the politician's wife."

"Convenient. Where is he now?"

"Vick sent Dobson and Nathan to pick him up." He had his hands in his pockets and seemed to be interested in the floor tile beside her desk.

"Not us?"

Now he looked at her. Grimaced. "_We_ have to go back to Galway's this morning. He's had another gift."

Juliet sighed. "Can I have five minutes with this coffee?"

"Take ten." He gave her a crooked smile and started away.

"Carlton."

He stopped, reluctantly. "What?"

She looked at him. "Come here, please."

He obeyed, slowly, as if he'd considered snapping out that he was busy but thought better of it.

Standing by her desk, he looked for all the world like… like he would rather be anywhere else. That was his body language. But his eyes said something different. His eyes took her back to the moments before she'd kissed him.

"Everything's going to be all right," she said gently, then stood up and quickly hooked her fingers over his belt buckle to keep him from backing away. "You let me know if your left arm gives you any trouble."

He seemed to have stopped breathing, and the blue of his eyes held both terror and desire. She recognized the latter perfectly well, and not just because essentially having her fingers pressed to his navel was a pretty intimate action. In fact, the more intently he stared at her, the more she felt her face warming. Slowly she let go of him, and just as slowly, he took a step back.

They were still sort of frozen like this when McNab came up and handed Juliet a piece of paper. "Hey, Detective. Forensics said this was left out of the report on that alien house." He was gone before she could react.

It took a moment to focus on the words before her.

"What is it?" Carlton asked after a deliberate throat-clearing.

"Something about a fiber—a purple fiber—being found on the edge of the roof above the attic window."

"Purple," he repeated. "Hey, do you remember where that kid yesterday said he worked?"

She tried to remember, and this effort helped put their work relationship back into focus. "Decker's, I think."

"What is that? A restaurant?"

"No, I think it's… hang on." She sat at her computer and looked it up, and he bent next to her to see her screen. Too close. Not close enough. Scent of aftershave. Hint of body heat.

"And did you notice," he added while she typed, "that funny little look when he said the name of the place?"

"I did. And look at this—Decker's is a climbing center."

Carlton turned to grin at her, and oh, how she wanted to put her hands on his face and kiss him, but before she could lose enough of her mind to risk also losing her job, he straightened up, already back on the case. "I don't believe in coincidences, O'Hara. Let's hit Decker's before we go see Galway."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Before they went out to the Crown Vic, Lassiter took a few minutes in the men's room to ask himself what the hell had just happened at Juliet's desk.

The woman had grabbed his belt. He had felt her fingers _under his belt_, separated from the skin of his stomach by only the fabric of his shirt.

Holy.

Crap.

So much for wake-up calls. The images and the sensations from that brief contact were all up in his head, smashing into each other and showing no signs of settling down any time soon.

But he put on his best Lassiter face and headed out. Holster secure, jacket on, guard up.

On the way to Decker's he focused their conversation on Brett Tanner. "He works at a climbing center. No way does a teenage boy in good shape _not_ check out the rock walls and try out the equipment."

"But even if he climbed up to the top of Galway's house, he certainly didn't carry all those deck prisms with him—or make multiple trips—and the window wasn't broken out completely, so he didn't enter the attic that way." Juliet frowned out the window. "Of course, he didn't have to, did he?"

"Right. He had a partner. Someone distracted Galway in the kitchen with the light source while the attic window was being broken."

"So what did he break it with? Galway said there wasn't anything in the attic which didn't belong there. Other than the prisms."

Lassiter puzzled over this for only a moment (couldn't take more time than that because in the silence she might do or say something terrifying). "Tanner climbed onto the roof, used something he brought with him to break the window, and when he or his partner snuck into the house later using the security system access code, they placed the prisms and removed whatever broke the window."

Juliet shook her head. "What a pointlessly risky prank. How could they know how long Galway would be gone?"

"Good question. He could have stayed in the house and called the cops, left the house and called the cops, or raced upstairs to see what the noise was. One guy might hide in plain sight on the roof, but two guys in the attic?"

"I really don't get this crime," she said. "Look, there's Decker's."

He zoomed into the lot and parked much too close to the front door, not that he ever worried about anyone having the nerve to complain. And even though Juliet sometimes admonished him about taking liberties, he suspected she didn't mind at all the sheer convenience of door-side parking when they were in investigation mode. (She drew the line when it came to lunch, however. _You _will_ park in a proper space, Carlton. Just do it_.)

Decker's Rock Climbing had everything from rock walls to an exercise area, and a pretty good crowd for a weekday morning. Lassiter looked up at the closest wall, spotted with colorful footholds, and asked Juliet if this sort of thing interested her.

"Not really," she said, and he realized his mistake, because she stood next to him and once again managed to momentarily entangle her fingers with his. "You?"

"No," and did he sound half-strangled? Launching himself at the service counter, he had already asked about Brett Tanner before it sank in that the employees were wearing purple shirts.

Brett, they were told, had worked at the center for close to a year, initially just keeping up with supplies and equipment and later taking on more duties. Oh yes, the perky girl behind the counter said, he was a fine climber and couldn't seem to resist the free-standing climbing tower; why were they asking about him?

No reason, Juliet lied; just looking into taking some personal classes and blah de blah Lassiter couldn't concentrate because the counter was chest high and somehow he had slipped his hand into hers and he didn't know why or how or when his hand had sought his brain's permission to do that, but Juliet was holding on warmly and he was glad she was doing the talking because damn. What.

Yeah.

Uh. Thingy.

They went back to the car (detached), he drove down the street, parked in front of a bookstore, turned to her and got half of her name out (just the O', so maybe it was only a third) before she kissed him. And that was good. That was very good. And bad. But so good.

Damn, her mouth was wonderful. Sweet lips, taste of coffee and hint of cinnamon and what she did with her tongue against his was reducing him to complete rubble. Her sigh—was that a sigh? was it a little moan? Good God, was _he_ making that sound?—was as intoxicating as her kiss, and Lassiter's mind was nearly fully shut down when his phone rang.

Juliet's phone rang too.

His call was from Galway. _Where are you; I'm a busy man; this is important._

Her call was from Vick, reminding them that Galway was waiting and she knew this because someone from the mayor's office had called her to complain on his behalf, and by the way, Shawn Spencer was on his way to Galway's house too.

Lassiter ended the call and started the car and couldn't even look at Juliet, who was touching up her makeup and composing herself. Well, at least having Spencer there would help keep them both under control. He hoped. God, did he hope.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet had always prided herself on her professionalism. She'd sometimes been the only in-control person around when Carlton was on a tear about something and Shawn was being… well... Shawn.

At the moment, she barely had control of her _badge_. She _knew_ she had to go slow with Carlton. She _knew_ it. Touching his hand in the climbing center was a stupid whim. But when he reached for _her_ hand, there at the counter, she'd been overcome with an intense and immediate need for more. _He'd taken her hand. Of his own free will. Unprompted._

This was a huge breakthrough—a sign of trust (despite having run away moments before)—proof he was willing to let her _see_ his interest in her. It was nearly as good, all Carlton things considered, as having overheard his confession to Mac.

But kissing him just now? Wow. She didn't know why he'd pulled over, or what he had intended to say to her, but wow. Her cheeks were still hot.

He was looking straight out the window, grim again, and she could almost hear the yelling in his head, the self-recriminations, and if whispering 'stop thinking' in his ear could accomplish anything other than making her want to nip at his earlobe, she'd have tried.

Oh, God, now she was thinking about nibbling other parts of him. _JULIET! DOWN!_

Carlton parked the Crown Vic in the driveway next to the Blueberry. Shawn and Gus were in front of the garage door and Shawn was jumping up and down and pointing excitedly toward the back of the property.

"Way to keep a low profile, Spencer," Carlton muttered.

John Galway was standing, arms crossed, radiating disapproval. He glanced pointedly at his watch while she and Carlton got out of the car. "I have been waiting," he began, "since—"

Carlton interrupted him. "We were actually investigating another lead on this case, and while I know this probably doesn't matter to you, we also had a double murder last night, so with all due respect. Sir. Show us why we're here." The '_and_ _shut it_' was implied.

"So cool!" Shawn exclaimed. "So cool so cool so cool!"

Gus was beaming. "I've already taken six photos."

Shawn said, "Come on! Hurry!" and led the way around the side of the house to the back yard.

There was no particular reason to hurry; what he wanted them to see wasn't going anywhere.

"Okay, that's different," Carlton said mildly.

The long yard sloped down somewhat sharply, ending with a tall wooden fence. The angle allowed for a really excellent view of what, in a corn field setting, might have been a crop circle.

"It's paint," Shawn said happily. "But isn't it cool?"

"You know that's right," Gus agreed, and they fist-bumped.

The 'crop circle' consisted of six concentric circles, alternating in blue and green paint. Inside each circle, equidistant from each other, were yellow numbers, with 6 at the outer edge, leading to a large blood-red 1 in the middle.

"What is this supposed to mean?" Galway demanded.

Carlton pursed his lips. "How the hell should _we_ know?"

"Well," Juliet said, "for one thing, it means you don't have an alien problem."

Shawn seemed sad. "True. But it's still cool." He and Gus nodded at each other.

"My grass will die," Galway declared. "That's not _cool_, and Detective, how can you be sure of anything about this?"

"Did you change your security alarm code like we told you?" Carlton asked testily.

"Of course!"

"Which is why _humans _had to move their prank to your back yard. Not aliens. Besides, I think aliens could do better than painting grass." Carlton approached the edge of the circle, peering at the grass around the blue lines.

"Show some respect," Shawn protested. "This is pretty cool for having to work in total darkness."

"Spencer, if you use the word 'cool' one more time, I'll put you on ice."

"Oh look! Lassie made a joke—" Shawn stopped, eyeing Carlton's expression. "Never mind." He backed off with Gus a few feet.

Juliet turned to Galway and summoned up her best soothing-without-being-condescending tone. "Mr. Galway, we are certain these events are the work of human beings. We need to ask you a few more questions about your habits. May we go inside?"

Gus held up his hand. "Do you need us?"

"He's got another little work thing," Shawn groused.

Juliet could see Carlton's internal struggle not to snap out a 'we never need you' or words to that effect. "I think we're good, Shawn, but we'll check in later."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

The blue gazing balls still sat in their silent circle in Galway's living room. "I don't know what to do with them," he said defensively.

"What about the deck prisms?"

"I haven't moved those either."

Lassiter stepped over one of the balls to stand in the center of the circle they formed. Juliet smiled at the sight but Galway was a bit unsettled. "Tell us again why you didn't call the police when you heard the crash that first night?"

Galway cleared his throat. "I… believed it was an… otherworldly occurrence. I knew if I called the police I would be laughed at."

"Your cousin is the mayor. Do you _ever_ get laughed at?" Lassiter's tone wasn't quite rude (he hoped), but Juliet sent him a warning glance.

She pressed the point, however. "You left the house. Where did you go, and why did you stay away so long?"

"I have always advocated the safety in numbers philosophy, but it was too late to go to the mall. I checked into the nearest Holiday Inn and waited until morning."

"The 'daylight is better' philosophy," Lassiter agreed. "Seriously, why didn't you just report that someone was breaking into your home?"

Galway shrugged. "I… I don't know, Detective. I was rattled. The light… it was so…" He looked down at the gazing balls and said no more.

"Did you tell anyone you changed your security code?" Juliet asked.

At that his head snapped up. "Only my next-door neighbor, but I didn't tell him the new code. I've just… been discussing these issues with him."

By 'discussing,' Lassiter deduced, he meant 'unloading on.' "That would be Mr. Tanner? Your former co-worker?"

"Yes, Scott Tanner. Are you suggesting he did this? Because that's outrageous."

"I believe all I did was ask who you told, Mr. Galway." Lassiter was struggling to keep his tone mild, but again, Juliet silently let him know to dial it back. "Did you at any time, ever, in a moment of extreme weakness, give him the original code?"

Galway flushed. "As I told you before, I'm extremely careful about sharing that sort of information."

"Careful doesn't mean not ever trusting _anyone_," Lassiter pressed, and somehow _knew_ Juliet was thinking there was an analogy to his own life. "Someone to water plants and bring in the mail when you're away, for example? Someone like a neighbor who used to be a co-worker, someone you trust enough to discuss all this with?"

"I… I may have told him once. A long time ago. When I was going out of town for a few weeks. But I told him I'd changed it after I got back, and why would he remember it now? And why would he do this?"

_You never changed it at all. You're a man of habit, and Tanner would know this_.

"We're not saying he did," Juliet assured him. "We're just trying to figure everything out. I wouldn't even worry about it if I were you. Detective Lassiter and I will speak with him and it'll probably be of no concern whatsoever."

"Where does Tanner work?"

"At my old firm. Hughes & Fenner." He provided the address reluctantly and agreed not to repeat any part of their conversation to anyone else.

Juliet gestured to Lassiter to exit the circle, and after Galway had shown them the door and closed it a bit too forcefully behind them, they headed to the car.

"Tanner knew Galway never changed the code," Lassiter said, sliding in behind the wheel.

"I was thinking that, too." She buckled up, and when he was back on the road headed downtown to find Hughes & Fenner, Inc., she simply reached over and took his right hand off the steering wheel to clasp it in her lap, against her thigh.

_Oh my God. _

_How does she do that_, he wondered, his heart pounding; _I'm not supposed to turn into a basket case every time she touches me—_

_Oh, hell, who am I kidding; I'm toast_.

"Brett Tanner left the purple fiber on the roof when he climbed up there, so we need to get that shirt to compare to the fiber," she said matter-of-factly. "Do you think there's any special significance to what was painted in the grass?"

_Focus. Focus. Focus_. "I think if you wanted to paint something in a sloping yard in the dead of night, you'd keep it simple. Circles and numbers are simple."

"Like crop circles, with minimal light, a stick and a rope to help keep the circles accurate. But I don't think this is just because Galway changed the security code. They had to plan out what they were going to do."

"This may always have been Phase 3. I know I'm paranoid but this just feels like they're trying to drive him nuts, not send a real message." He nearly stopped breathing when her thumb started moving on the back of his hand in gentle circles.

She gave him a wry smile—most likely about his admission of paranoia. "Still, it has to be personal somehow," she said. "I mean, if you go after your next door neighbor you're putting yourself under the spotlight too."

"Maybe papa Tanner can help with that." He felt calmer now; the circles were steady and having his hand held so warmly and securely was pretty damned nice.

"I love your hands," she said quietly. "They're graceful but strong. Nice long fingers."

Gone was the relaxation, and there was no chance he could speak coherently, so he said nothing, and kept his eyes on the road.

After a moment, he could feel her gaze. "Carlton."

He found his voice, ragged though it was. "What happened? Why are you… what _happened_?"

She smiled. "Sometimes perspectives change."

"Which means they can change back," he countered grimly, stopping for a red light. Victoria's had.

"No… wait. Let me rephrase. Perspectives on what to _do_ about something can change. The something itself doesn't change."

It was hard to make sense of English while she was stroking his hand; both of her warm soft hands enclosed his now. He felt her touch radiating throughout his body and some of the effects were probably illegal.

"Carlton… I can see I'm causing you some… consternation, and I really don't want to make you insane. I don't. I know… look." She squeezed his hand. "If you really—I mean really—want me to stop… what I'm doing—even though honestly I'm not quite sure what I'm doing either—if you want me to let go of your hand… tell me. Please."

He let out a deep breath, and _did not want to be separated from her_.

That, it seemed, was the core of… _everything_.

"Keep it," he finally said, and glanced over to see her brilliant smile, and couldn't (wouldn't dream of) stopping her from leaning in fast to kiss his cheek before he had to proceed at the green light.

Her laughter was soft and delighted. "How's your left arm doing?"

"It wishes it were my right arm."

At the next red light, she kissed him on the mouth and slipped a hand inside his shirt and turned him into a hormonal teenager instead of a hardened cop, though _hardened_ probably wasn't the best word choice, and Lassiter just kept thinking _we have to talk even though I hate to talk_ and _oh God I don't want to talk I just want her_.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	5. Chapter 5: Explanations

**CHAPTER FIVE: EXPLANATIONS**

** There be smut here: Rated M! **

**. . . .**

**. . .**

In Hughes & Fenner's reception area, they asked to speak with Scott Tanner, and while waiting—Juliet keeping far enough way to make it impossible to give in to the temptation to touch him, and Carlton doing the same—they worked on some of the desk staff.

John Galway, they were told readily enough, had been part-owner in the firm with Hughes after Fenner's passing. He'd sold his half upon retirement, and it was obvious he was not missed. When pressed to explain why, they admitted he was extremely inflexible and never, ever, bent the rules for _anyone_. "It's a shame about Scott," one of the young women said, but fell silent when the other girl nudged her.

Scott Tanner was in his late forties and unexpectedly cheerful for an accountant. He smiled when they explained they were investigating the incidents at Galway's house, but Juliet thought it was not a knowing smile, just… a smile.

His office was in the basement, tiny and windowless. "I hope to get up to the third floor in a few months when one of the lifers retires," he said optimistically.

Carlton stretched his long legs out in front of him. "Mr. Tanner, I'm sure you don't share John Galway's theory about alien involvement in these incidents. It's more likely he's the victim of a series of elaborate pranks, so we're looking at who might have a reason to target him. I don't suppose you have any theories?"

Tanner blinked. "Well, it won't take you very long to find out _I_ should have a motive, but I assure you, that's all been blown out of proportion."

Carlton just looked at him. Juliet asked, "Tell us what happened and we'll decide if it got blown out of proportion."

"I assure you, it's nothing. I made a significant error in the paperwork for one of our important clients, and John had no choice but to demote me according to company policy. Of course I'm sorry it happened, and of course I miss my old office, but frankly I'm lucky to have a job." His smile, again, seemed natural.

Juliet let it go for now. Carlton picked up the slack. "He's talked to you about his home intrusions. Does he spend a lot of time talking to you?"

He shrugged. "We're neighbors. Neighbors talk."

That seemed slightly evasive, Juliet thought. "When did he give you his house alarm security code?"

"Oh, that was a couple of years ago, but he changed it afterward."

"Are you sure?"

"He said he did. Why would he lie?"

"He's a man of exceptionally rigid scheduling," Carlton said. "Changing a code would have meant learning a new thing. Who else might he have given it to? Does he have relatives, or other friends, or—why are you laughing?"

Tanner composed himself. "I'm sorry. If you've met John, then you already know he doesn't do well with people. He's not close to his family and honestly I think the only reason he talks to me is because I'm a _known_ evil."

"What do the other neighbors think of him?"

"We don't exactly compare notes, Detective. But I'm sure they're… look, John's not a bad guy. He's just not warm and fuzzy."

Juliet nodded, and Tanner grinned. "Understood. What do your kids think of him? We met your son the other day—Brett?"

"Yes, Brett. They're… well, of course they're not keen on him. He doesn't like kids and he doesn't mind showing it." He leaned back in his chair. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

_And _that_ is the dismissal_, Juliet noted. He had his own suspicions, whether or not he was involved, and he didn't want to say any more than he had.

Carlton got to his feet when she did, and they thanked him for his time, and their first stop was back at the reception desk to corral the girl who'd expressed sympathy for Scott Tanner earlier.

It only took about ten seconds to break through her unwillingness to talk, once they got her off behind a tall plastic tree. "Tanner said he made a significant error and Galway had no choice but to demote him," Carlton told her bluntly. "What's the real story?"

The girl—Meredith according to her nametag—was outraged. "He's too nice for his own good. What I heard was that the error was about eight dollars, in the client's favor. And we're talking a million dollar account. But John refused to make any exceptions: he said Scott had to be demoted, and that included kicking him out of his office. He cut his salary, too! Poor Brett had to scramble to get scholarships lined up, not to mention getting two part-time jobs. It's been really hard on the family."

"Harsh." Juliet was thinking Meredith had a little too much invested in the Tanners, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. "Was the other partner in agreement? Hughes?"

"Not really, but John put some kind of pressure on him and he caved. He said any mistake, no matter how minor, had to be treated the same way, because numbers were our business yadda yadda. Scott was the best guy on the team and now he's stuck in the basement and it's so not fair!"

"Doesn't seem to be," Juliet agreed. "Anyone else have a problem with John?"

Meredith wrinkled her nose. "I don't think anyone _hated_ him, if that's what you mean. I never heard anyone in particular had it in for him, and I've been here three years." She looked up at Carlton. "You have really nice eyes."

Carlton blinked, and Juliet bit back the impulse to say 'he's mine.' "Thanks," he said. "They came with the face."

Juliet couldn't help but laugh, proud he'd opted for humor instead of snarkery. "Thank you for your time, Meredith. If you do think of anyone who might want to go after Galway, let us know."

Back in the car, she said, "Let's take a look at Tanner's financials. That salary cut may have given him a motive to screw with Galway."

Carlton thought about it. "Usually I think everyone's guilty until proven innocent but it doesn't track that Tanner would go after him. It's too obvious."

"I agree. That's why I like Brett for it. We need to see about getting his shirt tested, too." She decided to keep her hands in her lap for this car ride. The last ride had been a little too intense.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Back at the station, after reporting to Vick and sending Dobson out to pick up an employee shirt from Decker's—if the fabric was consistent with the fiber found on the roof they'd get a warrant for Brett Tanner's purple shirt—Lassiter found a moment to stare at his computer screen and mentally review the Juliet-events of the day.

Belt-buckle maneuver, check.  
>Hand-holding at Decker's, check.<br>Make-out in the car, check.  
>More hand-holding, check.<br>Tacit agreement that hand-holding was good, check.  
>Second make-out in the car, check.<br>Lassiter about to go freaking _insane_, check.

He looked over at the back of her head and took a deep breath. Then another one.

At this time last week, he could not have guessed anything like this could ever happen. At this time last week, the idea that she might ever… _ever_… damn. He needed a drink. Anything would do. Something he could pour on his head.

That this woman he loved had actually, of her own volition, kissed him… repeatedly… and seemed to want to do it again… it was unbelievable. Could he be in a coma? Dreaming little coma-dreams about impossibly wonderful improbabilities? Was he lying in a hospital bed with an old battleaxe nurse peering down at him wondering why her coma patient was smiling? It would have to be a nurse; he expected no visitors, except maybe his sister. In fact, he reasoned, this actually made sense: for him to suddenly have this utterly magical thing happen to him could only be properly explained by a massive head injury with attendant brain damage. And come to that, it wouldn't be a nurse; it would only be an orderly. Part-time. With an earring and a drug habit and most likely bad skin.

A message popped up on his screen from Juliet. "Are you over-thinking?"

Damn her; she made him grin. He sent a "Yes."

"Well, stop it," she sent back, and turned in her chair to smile at him briefly.

"How?"

"I have ideas," she sent.

_That's what I'm afraid of. Afraid as in, anything you frickin' want I will do for you. To you. Anything_. He didn't type that. She probably knew already.

He put his head in his hands, willing himself to settle down. He was Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective. He could do this.

He couldn't do this.

He sent her a message. "Observation room, five minutes." Then he got up and went down there because he knew she would follow, and it was stupid to take a chance like this but it had been at least ninety minutes since he'd kissed her and that had to be rectified, coma be damned.

She entered the room and closed the door and looked at him, her blue-gray eyes knowing and yet wondering, and he put his arms around her and kissed her and everything felt a lot better and also a _hell_ of a lot scarier but he couldn't stop and neither could she.

He leaned against the table and she pressed herself to him and they kissed and kissed and kissed, holding on tight and simply absorbing each other. That's what it felt like to Lassiter.

Soaking her up—her scent, her warmth, her need.

Giving himself up to her as much as he could—while remaining fully dressed in a concrete-walled room into which any co-worker could walk at any moment… but it really wasn't the risk which was turning him on. It was just Juliet: every curve, every sigh, every taste of her.

Finally some of the fire was banked. Juliet cupped his face and kissed him one last time, a slow promise for more, later, alone.

After she left the room, he realized neither one of them had said a word. And this made him smile, because unspoken communication was one more benefit from their years of partnership.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

The afternoon was full. Too full.

Juliet and Carlton dealt with the aftermath of the stripper/wife murders, worked more on the vase murder, and were able to submit the Decker's shirt for testing with a 'rush' on it per Chief Vick, who was tired of the mayor's office calling for updates on Galway's behalf.

She was still in a state of… thrum? from her encounter with Carlton in the observation room, and while she knew that professionally she should be abjectly ashamed, that crap wasn't going to fly today. There was more to come and she knew it and he knew it and the sooner the damned well better.

McNab approached while she was fixing a late-afternoon coffee; he handed her a folder and said with a smile, "I think we found your deck prism and gazing ball thefts, Detective."

She hurried with her coffee and carried the folder over to Carlton's desk. His blue gaze was fixed on his computer screen, his tie was loose and his sleeves rolled up, and what she could see of his chest hair combined with the bare forearms made her want to do things Chief Vick most likely would not tolerate in her police station.

Carlton looked up and smiled, and she nearly melted, because he had such a nice smile when it was sincere and unfettered by irritation, and the way it lit his eyes was phenomenal.

"Prisms and gazing balls," she said, and sat in the chair near his. Seeing his coffee mug was empty, she left the folder with him and went to get him a refill, and when she returned with his coffee 'just so,' he gave her another smile and a heartfelt thanks and a look which made goosebumps rise on her skin.

"McNab was very thorough," he said, showing her the reports. "Looks like three garden supply places—here, Ventura, and Ojai—reported thefts of 4, 5, and 4 blue gazing balls each about two months ago. Nothing else known missing at the time, no damage to property."

"Those were places where the merchandise is out there in the open, right? So all they had to do was hop a fence, avoiding security cameras and guard dogs."

"Right. Now, the deck prisms are interesting. A warehouse over in Thousand Oaks had a fire three months back, with partial damage to the structure. Looks like securing the site was a problem, and they've reported warehouse items missing since then. One of the reports was about a shipment of deck prisms, which comprised three boxes."

Juliet frowned at him. "It doesn't make sense if we're still looking at Brett Tanner. Stealing gazing balls from an open-air garden supply place, sure. But knowing where to find three boxes of deck prisms in a damaged warehouse in Thousand Oaks? That implies some inside information."

"Yes, it does." He closed the folder. "We'll get a list of employees with access to warehouse inventory information, and figure out who links back to Tanner or Galway."

"Or Hughes & Fenner," she suggested. "Meredith was pretty worked up about Tanner's bad deal."

They smiled at each other, and Juliet began to feel… that feeling. That certain feeling of a certain thing which was certainly going to happen, certainly soon.

She looked at her watch. "It's nearly five. We've had a long week."

"Leaving a little early sounds good," he agreed, his blue eyes darkening.

"Come over," she nearly whispered.

"Yes."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter, because he was Lassiter, tried to analyze exactly what he was feeling as he drove to Juliet's place a short while later.

He was nervous, but not nervous at all. He was far more concerned about the conversation they needed to have than about anything else which might happen.

Because really, they _needed_ to talk. He needed to know _why_ she was doing what she was doing now.

There were all these issues about their partnership, about the level of discretion they'd have to maintain, about how he had screwed up one on-the-job relationship already and he still wasn't sure how Spencer had sussed that out in a five-minute meeting, but for damn sure he'd be the first to spot something between Lassiter and Juliet—and although there was no way Spencer would do anything to hurt Juliet, he might well make things difficult for Lassiter, which would upset Juliet, which would make Lassiter want to shoot Spencer, and this kind of circular loopy thinking was bad. Very bad.

Yet how could he pass up a chance to find out if Juliet's interest in him was real? How could he turn down a chance for the greatest happiness a battle-scarred man like him could ever find?

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet yanked open the door at his knock. She'd only been home a few minutes and they'd seemed like an hour. "Hi." She was breathless.

Carlton stepped in, serious, possibly pale. Dammit, he'd been thinking again.

_Ride it out, O'Hara. Calm him. _

She made him give up his coat and holster, and watched him fidgeting, seeing his internal struggle: what to say, what not to say; and while she wanted to just throw her arms around him, she understood he needed to find his own place to stand. He needed firm ground. A man like Carlton Lassiter—_were_ there other men like him?—needed to be sure of where he was, who he was, who the players were, and how to plan for every contingency.

So she was not prepared when he stepped forward abruptly and gripped her upper arms. "O'Hara," he said urgently, "this is making me crazy. You know it is. I keep thinking of all the reasons I shouldn't come anywhere near you and there are about a million of them, from what it could do to our careers to the fact that I'm not good for you or, hell, _anyone_, and you could do a thousand times better than me but then you're standing there looking at me like that, and my _God_, I want you; I've wanted you so long and despite every one of those reasons that I shouldn't even be allowed to _talk_ to you, all I can think is you're so damned beautiful and it's going to kill me if I don't just do this, now, fast, hard—" and he grasped her hands and pushed her back against the wall and covered her mouth with his.

Juliet, after her heart restarted, kissed him back voraciously until merely kissing wasn't enough; then she freed her hands from his grip and started unbuttoning his shirt, just like that, no preamble, because as much as he wanted it, she wanted it too.

More. Faster.

Fingers in his chest hair, mouth devouring his. Tugging his shirt out of his pants, undoing his belt. Carlton let her disrobe him, concentrating on packing as much heat into their kiss as he could, or so it felt, as if he were climbing into her soul for the duration.

Eventually he started yanking at her clothes, too... moving his mouth to the silky skin of her breasts, tugging her bra aside, engulfing her nipple, hot urgent breath making those goosebumps rise again all over her body. She ran her hands up and down his lean chest, feeling his muscles, feeling his heat and his racing heartbeat, and when he took too long with her blouse, she pulled it off herself, bra right after, and pressed herself to him.

Chest to chest, mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue. Hands everywhere.

Carlton groaned and picked her up enough to get her into her bedroom, dumping her on the bed and divesting himself of his pants while she wriggled out of her skirt. Panties too; no sense wasting any more time than necessary.

He lay beside her, stroking her body, and there was nothing gentle about it, nor did she want anything gentle, not this time. Not this _first_ time. The days of cautious touches—a slow fire building—had left her absolutely ready for _everything_, and she intended to have it. There would be time for detailed exploration later on.

His hand slid between her thighs, slow but firm, rising up to find the heat. His tongue rasped against her lips just as his long warm fingers found the hot spot, and she arched up to meet his hand. No ceremony, no torture, just straight to the point, and her orgasm was fast and furious and perfect.

Juliet clutched at his back, raking her fingernails lightly along his flesh as he slid into her, and she wrapped her legs around his for this union, this _ohmyGod_ intimate connection of their bodies. He felt perfect inside her, against her. His breath on her cheek, his eyes intensely blue, gaze locked to hers as he moved with her, deeper, faster, _more, more, don't stop, don't ever stop, oh my God don't ever stop_...

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter lay on his side, one hand supporting his head as he watched her sleep. Her perfect and only-partly-covered-by-the-sheet body was warm and close; her chest rose and fell with her breathing, and he was already imagining touching her again, only slower this time. Carefully. No rushing. For as long as she'd let him be with her, he would take as long as he could to memorize—by touch and by kiss—everything about her, from ankles to earlobes, from navel to the small of her back, from calves to shoulders.

Although he had dreamed many times of this glorious event taking place, it had been far more intensely gratifying than his imagination had allowed. The key for him—the moment he had finally lost it—had been a gasp from her parted lips and a look of total abandon in her blue-gray eyes before she'd rasped out, "It's you."

_It's me_, he thought. _Me?_

Juliet opened her eyes and sighed.

"Hey," he whispered.

"Carly," she murmured, and rolled to face him, already touching him, running her hands down his side to his hip, then back up to his chest. She gave up her mouth to him, and they kissed much more slowly and sensuously than before, but it felt the same. Merely a less intense inferno, but an inferno all the same.

"You're not going to throw me out?" he murmured against her throat.

"I'm not going to _let_ you out," she corrected, and undulated against him.

"Until?"

"Until I'm completely done with you." She smiled, trailing her fingers along his collarbone.

"Which will be when?"

Laughing softly, she pretended grave calculation. "Let's just say not soon."

"That's pretty vague," he observed, and then she was kissing and touching him and the desperate need arose again, silencing them both except for ragged sighs and moans of intense, exquisite pleasure.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	6. Chapter 6: Interlude

**CHAPTER SIX: INTERLUDE**

**~ a little M, I must admit ~ **

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet woke up alone before five a.m.

Carlton's pillow was cool, and she felt a stab of fear that he was gone. That he had left her.

But after a moment spent staring at the barely-lit-by-dawn ceiling, she realized she could hear water running, and when she turned her head, a faint line of light showed under the bathroom door.

The relief which washed over her was startling in its intensity. _He hadn't run away from this_. _Oh thank God, he hadn't run away._

Stretching now, considerably happier, she contemplated the night's events. She felt utterly relaxed and sated and yet—and yet she would not have said no to another few hours... days... weeks... in bed with him. Possibly years.

Yes, in fact; years.

Because damn.

Just... _damn_.

The bathroom door opened and the light snapped off, and Carlton came toward her with a towel around his lean waist.

"Hi," she said softly, and he sat beside her on the bed. "You smell good." There were droplets of water on his shoulders and his hair was wet.

"I was going to wait for you but I didn't know if you..." He seemed embarrassed. "I didn't know if you'd want to share the shower."

Juliet smiled and touched his damp chest. "After the past night, you shouldn't wonder what I'm willing to share with you."

He sighed and bent his head to kiss her, lips cool and searching and delicious, and it was just that easy to start everything up again.

_I love this man_, she heard in her head, followed by _damn straight you do_, but then he pulled back the sheet which covered her and she pulled off his towel and he lay with her and let her stroke him and when it was too much, he pulled her on top of his warm body and she rode him with slow intensity, making him groan underneath her until the passion had crested and there was nothing left but deep afterglow.

Much later, in the silence, with her head on his shoulder, she whispered, "I was afraid you'd left."

He turned to kiss her forehead. "I couldn't."

"But you thought about it?"

"It's not that easy for me to let go of old insecurities," he said mildly, and she knew it _also_ wasn't easy for him to say something so… personal. Revealing. Maybe he trusted her more than she thought.

Keeping it light, she pointed out, "You have nothing to be insecure about. Remember, you hoodled my whatzit all night long."

He laughed, a low rumble which she felt and loved. "Well, you have an extremely appealing whatzit."

"Thank you! I admire _your_ whatzit, too." She started to slide her hand down his abdomen to show him but he caught it, still laughing, and kissed her palm instead.

"O'Hara... Juliet." He kissed her fingers. "These past few days have been insanely... I don't know the word."

"Wonderful? Exhilarating?"

"Both of those, plus incredibly erotic." He sighed. "I haven't been able to think straight at all."

"Are you thinking straight now?" _Please don't be thinking about walking away from this_.

"How would I know?" He smiled. "I know I feel damned good."

"Is it just because of whatzit-hoodling?"

Carlton laughed and suddenly scrambled to his feet—on the bed—standing above her with his arms outstretched, and she didn't know what wonderful crazy spontaneous thing he was about to do but she loved, loved, _loved_ that it was about to happen—

And then the bed broke.

The frame shifted, the mattress started to slide; Carlton fell away from her and they were both laughing and laughing and even as he was gasping that he was sorry, she slid herself down to where he lay and began kissing him, hungrily, so desperately needing to communicate her love without words, and Carlton kissed her back with equal passion and there on the broken bed, at an angle, he took her, and it was fast and hard like their first time, and Juliet could hardly breathe, her heart was pounding, her blood was roaring, her muscles clamping around him, her mouth utterly consumed by his, and oh, God, the feelings were incredibly intense and when it was over she lay stunned. Absolutely and completely stunned.

He lay on top of her for a long time, unable to catch his breath, and she didn't want him to move at all. She could have stayed like that forever.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

The names from the Thousand Oaks warehouse employee list were swimming all over the screen, and Lassiter just let it happen. He was so tired. So very tired. It was only ten a.m. but he could have slept now for ten hours straight if the opportunity arose.

Problem was, he didn't want it to arise. He wanted to take Juliet back to bed… even if it were back to her broken bed. His face warmed thinking of it. He'd muttered to her at the coffee table that he was very sorry about the bed, and she turned her smiling, radiant face to him and said she wasn't sorry at all, and he'd had to make a hasty retreat to his desk before he broke down and touched her inappropriately.

Which she knew, judging by her feline smile.

Then again, _he_ knew she wanted to touch _him_ inappropriately too. He smiled at his computer screen.

"Lassie! How goes the alien crop circle blue balls case?"

Spencer's voice was too loud and too bright, and Lassiter nearly knocked his coffee mug over. He bit back a snarl with superhuman effort because… well, because he knew Juliet would appreciate him making an effort, even if it did have to be superhuman. "Good morning, Spencer," he said instead, which had a bonus effect of shocking the hell out of the pineapple-addict.

Guster even took a step back.

Lassiter started to feel better. "Actually, we might need you on this later. We're trying to figure out the who from a potential list of, oh, everyone."

Spencer frowned. "I thought it was the neighbor kid."

Juliet joined them, with a quick smile for Lassiter. "Did we talk to you about him?"

"Did you need to?" Spencer asked cockily.

Lassiter turned to Guster. "Did _you_ talk to the kid?"

"We saw you talking to him in the yard that day," Guster said, as if that explained everything. "From the upstairs window."

"And?"

"And I thought he was probably a good suspect," Spencer said briskly. "Didn't I tell you that?"

Lassiter scowled. "No, Spencer, you didn't. We even gave you a ride back to the station and you didn't say a word. What made you think—from a window—that he's the guy?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

He gave up and got up; it was time for more coffee anyway. Maybe a pastry. (Besides that, he was starting to feel a little weird about having a 'casual' conversation with Spencer after his wild night with Spencer's ex-girlfriend.)

Juliet said something dismissive to the other men and returned to her desk, but when he glanced in her direction, she motioned for him to come to her. "You did good." She was amused. "I was impressed."

"I could say something about being in a great mood, but would you believe me?"

There was that feline smile again. "Oh, I think I would today." He could almost hear the satisfied purr, and felt his color rising. God, he could clear her desk and get that skirt up around her waist and—

_Focus, Lassiter!_ He shook his head rapidly. "That girl who worked with Meredith. What was her name?"

She laughed. "It's not very flattering for you to be thinking about the case right now, Carly."

"It's either that or drag you into a closet somewhere, and I don't think my luck is that good." He grinned, feeling ridiculously happy, and Juliet turned a becoming shade of pink.

But she rallied. "I don't remember her name. Why?"

"We should have questioned her. She was pretty quick to shush Meredith and I thought it was just because they weren't supposed to gossip, but what if it's because she was afraid Meredith might let something slip?"

"We can get her name. What's your theory of the crime?"

"My money's still on Brett, but I'm not sure who his partner is. I don't think it's his father."

"But you know his father's got to be wondering if Brett's involved. Maybe it's Meredith. Or one of the staff at Decker's."

"Has to be someone with access to that warehouse info in Thousand Oaks. Maybe there's a third person," he mused.

"A silent partner? And again, I have to ask—what is the point of all this? Prisms, gazing balls, painted numbers: what are they trying to do exactly? And if it's about getting even for Scott Tanner's demotion, how is this helping?"

Lassiter rubbed his forehead. "Crap. Maybe we do need Spencer."

"Carlton," she admonished. "Don't give up yet. How's the employee list for the warehouse looking?"

"I'm only halfway through and haven't found anything yet."

"Detectives," said Chief Vick smoothly and with the faintest of smiles as she approached, but alas, not a happy relaxed smile.

"Chief," he said, rising. Something was up. They'd been on time to work (amazingly) so that wasn't it.

"John Galway has just called me personally to file a report."

"We've been nothing but polite to him," Juliet insisted. "And it's been really hard, too."

"No, O'Hara. I meant he was filing a report of a new _incident_."

"Crap on a cracker!" Lassiter snapped. "We are _so_ going to find out who's doing this, and by God, we are going to—"

"Lassiter," Vick said forcefully. "I know you are. Just go see the man. And take Spencer."

He was too annoyed about Galway to even mind Spencer and Guster being in the car with them again, and in fact a little part of his rational mind decided it was probably best, since the odds of _nothing_ happening between him and Juliet if they were alone were pretty low. Abysmally low, in fact.

But he was aware of her all the same, sitting in the car beside him… from how she held her hands in her lap to the sound of her skirt shifting across her knees, making him remember what was underneath … and he could smell her peach fragrance. Of course some of that scent was on him; they had ended up showering together after the final bed incident, and while he couldn't afford to dwell on that now, he for damn sure wouldn't be forgetting it any time soon.

Spencer and Guster started an argument about whether peanuts or nachos made the best snack, and Lassiter glanced again at Juliet, who gave him a wry smile and showed him with the look in her beautiful blue-gray eyes that she was remembering everything about last night, too.

_Focus_, he told himself for the umpteenth time.

Turned out they didn't need Galway to show them anything. He was standing in the front doorway, arms crossed, glowering as he always glowered, and Lassiter stopped short of pulling into the driveway once he saw the problem.

"The hell?" Guster asked in disbelief.

Spencer leaned across him to see out the passenger side window. "Whoa… that's awesome."

Lassiter parked in the street, and the four of them got out and stared for a minute.

The long brick sidewalk up to the porch, the entire surface of the driveway, and most of the lawn—and possibly some of the porch—were covered with numbers. Silver, mostly.

Juliet picked a few of them up off the grass. "Some of these look hand-cut from aluminum foil."

Others were cut from paper, wrapping paper, or were from confetti-style packages. Some were black numbers on white squares, crayon on construction paper—it was a cornucopia of numbers.

"That is numberiffic," Spencer said appreciatively, if not eloquently.

"Completely pointless," Juliet countered, and Lassiter could hear her irritation.

Galway came down off the porch, walking through the grass rather than down the sidewalk. "When is this going to stop?" Each word was its own sentence.

"Soon," Lassiter said, never meaning it more.

"Zero to nine." Guster had knelt to look at the numbers closest to the street. "I don't see anything over nine."

"There's an L!" exclaimed Spencer, pointing.

"Shawn, that's an upside-down seven." Guster stood up, holding a four and two sixes.

"Any idea when this happened?" Juliet asked.

"None." Galway was pissed. "But the streetlight's been out for a few weeks, so they had plenty of darkness to work in."

"You don't have motion sensor lights for your house?"

"I never needed them before." He was really _really_ pissed.

Lassiter said, "I'll have the street light repair expedited. Anything else happen?"

Galway returned to glowering. "Just make this _stop_." He stalked back to the house and slammed the door dramatically.

After a pause, Spencer said, "I'm going to go talk to those people over there." He pointed toward the Tanner home.

Lassiter sighed. "Knock yourself out."

Guster followed Spencer, and Juliet came to lean against the car with Lassiter. "So."

He glanced at her; she was shaking her head at the yard. "So. Other than the broken window and the painted grass, and those are pretty minor, there's no actual serious crime here."

"You hate vandals," she reminded him.

"I do. Passionately. But this is—hell, I don't know what it is, but it's not vandalism. It's just stupid."

"I agree completely. And I wonder if one reason it's stupid is to keep from going to jail."

Lassiter considered this. "Which… makes Brett Tanner look guiltier, because he has the most to lose. Didn't Meredith say something about scholarships? And he's got two part-time jobs? So he can't afford to screw up."

"Last night was incredible," she said conversationally.

He let out a breath, suddenly unable to think of anything else. "Hell, yeah."

"Any chance of a repeat tonight?"

He could only laugh, and wished he could touch her. But with Galway probably peering out the window and Spencer disturbingly close by, he had to be strong. _They_ had to be strong.

Juliet looked over at him, smiling. "What, you have to _think_ about it?"

Not damn likely. "Have you got another bed?"

"Yes," she said with a laugh, "down the hall. Are you afraid I'll break yours?"

"No, but truthfully I like your place better than mine. It's nicer."

"How much of it did you even see?" A teasing smile this time.

"It's nicer because _you_ live there," he elucidated.

She turned pink. "You're pretty nice, too, you know."

"No, I'm not."

Juliet slid a little closer along the car door. "I trust my opinion more than yours on this point."

"I'm still not," he said dryly. "Poll fifty people and you'll find yourself in the minority."

"Well… more for me, then." She beamed up at him.

"God, woman, I could take you right here."

She went pink again. "I wish you could."

He wished it too.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	7. Chapter 7: Advice

**CHAPTER SEVEN: ADVICE**

**. . . .**

**M. You got that? M! (I can't seem to stop.) (Sorry.) (Not really, but ****you've been warned****.)**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

"No way did that kid have anything to do with this," Spencer declared as he and Guster returned from the Tanner home.

"And you know because?" Juliet stepped away from Carlton as if she hadn't been nearly canoodling him.

Spencer shrugged. "I'm a psychic, Jules."

Guster nodded. "It's just obvious."

Lassiter shook his head, already losing his good mood. "That's all we get? _It's just obvious_? That's what we tell Vick?"

"You can tell her whatever you want, Lassie, but Brett Tanner didn't do any of this."

"Is he even home?" Juliet pressed. "Did you talk to him?"

"No, he's at one of his two part-time jobs. Or he's in class. Gus?"

"Class," Guster clarified. "He's pre-med."

"Well, then of course," she said with exaggerated understanding. "No pre-med student ever showed bad judgment."

"Didn't you tell us back at the station you thought Tanner was a good suspect?"

Spencer smiled innocently. "Well, really, Lassie. I was looking through an upstairs window. Anyone can divine incorrectly through _that_ kind of filter."

"But not talking to him _at_ _all_ let you 'divine' correctly? That's just… swell. Come on, O'Hara. Let's take the children home and get back to work."

It was a silent ride except for Spencer once again arguing with Guster about food—this time over which snacks went best with comedies, and which with James Bond films—and when they got back to the station, those two went to visit with Woody. A fine trio they made, Lassiter thought, the glib leading the weird.

As they neared the Chief's office, she came out and thrust a report into Lassiter's hands. "The purple fiber found on the roof of Galway's house does _not_ match the purple uniform shirts from Decker's."

"Well, that sucks." He skimmed the report, summing up for Juliet. "The fiber from the roof was more like a sweater, whereas the fiber from the uniforms is more like a t-shirt." He scowled.

Vick, hands on hips, looked at them both expectantly. "And? What did you find at his house? I'm really tired of this man and his flying monkeys calling me every half hour."

When Lassiter hesitated, Juliet explained the 'numbering' of Galway's lawn, adding, "It's increasingly ridiculous, Chief. A broken window, some lawn paint, and what do we call this, littering? Galway is about to stroke out, and I'm not that far behind him. It's a big waste of our time."

Karen Vick gave her a slow, very tricky smile. "I know you're not suggesting you're too good for this case."

Juliet was horrified. "Of course not!"

Lassiter intervened. "She's just saying that if you were to prioritize cases based on our experience and expertise, you might not—"

She cut him off. "Detective Lassiter, you've been a cop long enough to know that sometimes others set our priorities _for_ us. In this case, it's the Mayor. So the faster you catch these idiots, the better." She started to turn, then added, "Is Spencer helping at all?"

He rolled his eyes, and Juliet answered for them both. "He's not giving us anything concrete, but then there's not a lot to go on. He says Brett Tanner is innocent, but can't give a reason."

Vick sighed. "I'd rather have you find me a reason that someone's _guilty_, please. Stat." She spun on her heels and returned to her office.

Lassiter eyed Juliet, who seemed as annoyed as he felt. "Back to the employees list," he said grimly, and they split up.

Before lunch, Juliet had to go out for an appointment. She stood by his desk and smiled down at him, and with her body blocking anyone's view, she put her hand out to cover his. "I would have suggested we find a dark corner to _not_ have lunch together in, if you know what I mean, but you'll take a raincheck, won't you?" Her voice was low, her eyes bright, and he remembered how she sounded in bed.

Lassiter felt warm, and her pleased glance at his ears confirmed he was blushing. As if real men blushed. "Uh, yeah. Roger that."

He watched her walk down the hall, despite his intention not to do so, hoping no one _noticed_ him watching. She stopped when one of the uniforms spoke to her, and smiled up at the man, perfectly pleasant in her uniquely Juliet way, and he wondered again: _what is she doing with _me_?_

Spencer and Guster returned from their visit to Woody in the morgue, and met Juliet as she was leaving; Lassiter moved back to the window, idly watching as the three of them chatted in the parking lot for a few moments.

Juliet was just so pretty and so… so much more like other people than he was. There was just no way she would be able to—would even _want_ to—sustain a relationship with him. They were too different. He was too dysfunctional, impatient, unbending, rigid… too Lassiter.

Memories of last night crowded into his brain: _she was with _you_, idiot. She cried out _your_ name. She clutched _you_. She let _you_ into her bed and into her body and hell, even her shower_. _And she wasn't drunk or delusional either. She chose to be there, to let you be there. Accept this_.

His heart suddenly ached with fear, with anticipated loss.

Juliet got into her car and drove away, and he sat down at his desk and wished to be someone else.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Returning to the station with all errands squared away, Juliet was hoping to find a least a few minutes alone with Carlton before she settled back into work. She wanted to make sure he'd taken time to eat, and she wanted also to rub up against him illicitly somewhere in a private spot, with related kissing and groping involved (also in private spots) (several). All very unprofessional, but extremely necessary.

But he was not at his desk, and upon inquiry, she learned he'd stepped out a few minutes earlier, saying he'd be back in an hour.

Disappointing, she thought; maybe he'd assumed she'd be away longer.

Or maybe he'd gone to buy bed repair supplies; it was only the bed's leg which had gone kerplunk. She'd assured him this morning in the shower—_mmmmm, the shower_—that the bed was old, passed off to her by her family when she first moved to Santa Barbara, but he'd murmured something about it being _their_ bed now and she'd forgotten to pursue the line of conversation, especially with his tongue doing that thing to her which, if she kept thinking about it, would reduce her to a puddle right here at her desk.

There was no text or email or even a post-it note to give her a clue, however, and that was disappointing too.

_Wait_, the little voice said.

_Dammit_. _He's thinking again_.

Juliet sighed. This man was going to be hard to convince. It would be worth it, but it sure wouldn't be easy.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter sat in Flanagan's with a Coke and a club sandwich and a mood he couldn't shake. It was a familiar mood, the one which said _you are useless to other people and you should just go live in a cave_.

_God, what is wrong with you? The amazing young woman you've loved for years is within your reach and you're_ questioning _that?_ He dug his fingertips into his temples, trying to massage sense into his brain.

"That's goin' ta leave a mark, O'Lassiter." Mac didn't wait for an invite; he just plopped down onto the seat across from him.

"There's no O in my name."

Mac tilted his head, considering. "Ah, but I like it better my way. O'Lassiter seems legit. You know, like my accent." He grinned, and Lassiter couldn't help but grin back. "Now why are ye tryin' to poke holes in yer head?"

Lassiter sighed. "Give it your best bartender guess."

"But ye were just in here, what, two days ago, and she was pressin' up to ya!"

"She got closer," he said grimly.

Mac laughed. "Usually that's a good thing, boy-o."

He relented, and knew Mac didn't miss the smile. "I am so screwed."

"Aye, maybe. Wait. Is that a double meaning?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. _Look_ at me, Mac. I'm not the guy who gets the girl."

"But it sounds like you _got_ the girl."

"For one night, sure. One…unbelievable… incredible… oh my God, I can't even find words for it night." He felt goosebumps just thinking about it.

Mac surveyed him seriously. "Let me guess. You are a man who doesn't trust what's in front of him unless he understands it from every angle."

Lassiter nodded. "Damn straight."

"But… but O'Lassiter, it's a _woman_ yer talking about. You can't understand a woman from every angle. It's ne'er been done by any man who lived to tell the tale."

He had to smile, and took a swig of his Coke (wishing it were a Jack Daniels). "Doesn't really help me out there, Mac."

Mac leaned across the table. "Well, let me put it this way. Ye said she had a big heart, aye?" He waited for the nod. "And I'm guessin' she's your partner at work. How long?"

"Six years."

"And she used to be with the gel-hair lad?"

"Yup." Damn, he wanted a Jack.

"And she ended it with him—because ye only have to look at a girl like that once to know laddies don't end it with _her_—when, exactly?"

"Six weeks, give or take."

"So she's not exactly on the rebound. And she knew ye before. And she likes ye now—which means she liked ye before."

Lassiter frowned. "Your point?"

"Would ye admit I'm an observant fellow, O'Lassiter?"

"Aye," he said deliberately, and Mac grinned.

"I told ye I remember her bein' in here with him. I also remember _how_ she was with him. She was uncomfortable. She thought he was too loud, needin' too much attention, and payin' none to her."

"You think," Lassiter amended. "You _think_ that's what you saw." But he knew it was probably true; he'd noticed Juliet's discomfort with Spencer himself as the end of their relationship neared.

"If ye mean am I just tryin' to butter ye up, yer wrong. I make my livin' readin' people, boy-o, and anyway, since she did break it off with him, yer hardly in a position to argue my observations, now, are ye?"

He sighed. "Can we get to the part where you say something profound to make me rethink moving to Montana to live in a hut on the plains?"

Mac laughed. "O'Lassiter, every word out of my mouth is profound. I'm tryin' to tell ya to give this a shot. She's a pretty lass, she could have anyone, and she chose you. Or she's choosin' ye now, anyway. Do you regret last night?"

Lassiter swallowed. "No."

"Do you anticipate regrettin' it?"

"God no." He finished off the Coke, dodging mental images of being with Juliet.

"Then let's say you take a chance on this—but in a week, or in a month, or in a year, she wakes up and decides yer a nasty beast and she's got to be free."

He felt sick.

"Stay with me now, laddie," Mac said more softly. "The question is, would ye regret havin' that year of happiness? Or that month? Or that week?"

He stared at Mac, an ache in his chest, and let out a sigh. "No. I wouldn't regret one second of it."

"Then get the hell out of me bar, man, and go be with the lassie." Mac got up, slapped Lassiter on the back, and added, "Don't forget to tip yer waitstaff, either."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet jumped when her phone beeped, and grabbed it up, relieved and happy to see it was Carlton. The screen read, "Come down to Observation."

She was on her feet two seconds later, trying not to be obvious about hurrying.

He was standing in the unlit room, arms across his chest, and he looked up—blue eyes so intent, so vivid—when she came in. "Hey."

"I hope you called me down here to make out," she said bluntly after the door shut behind her.

"I did," he said, and opened his arms to enfold her.

Juliet breathed in the scent of his shirt, his warmth—_him_—in the seconds before his mouth found hers. His hands dropped to cup her derriere, and he pulled her close against his body. It wasn't long before she felt his arousal, and when his hands moved to slide up under her blouse—mouth still searching, plundering—she was delighted.

Oh, for solitude; real solitude… she ran her hand lightly across the fabric below his belt, and Carlton took in a sharp breath. Yes, he was definitely aroused.

So was she. "We have to lock the door," she murmured.

"We can't," he murmured back. "Not here."

"We can lock a door anywhere," she challenged, and felt that rumble of laughter against her throat. "I want you, Carlton. I've wanted you all morning. I've wanted you like crazy."

"I want you too, but we can't," he repeated, but since he had just slipped his hand under her bra to cup her breast, his tone was less sure.

"How about we do, and _pretend_ we didn't?"

"Hussy," he said sternly. "If I get caught hoodling your whatzit here, we're both fired on the spot."

She responded by repeating her hand-across-his-zipper maneuver, and Carlton sighed. "Maybe you don't understand how _much_ I want you."

"Oh, I understand," he growled, and lifted her up to sit on the table against the wall. "I'm just pointing out the risks."

Juliet unzipped his pants. "Tell me more. I'm listening."

Carlton leaned in close, gasping as she touched him. His breath was warm on her face and she could see the look of utter desire in his blue, blue eyes. "Juliet," he breathed.

Her shoes fell from her feet, and he kicked them away; then he reached over to lock the door.

"That's better." She licked his lips, wrapping her legs around his hips, and yes, she knew how dangerous and job-risky this was but… but she had to have him. _Stupid horny girl_, she admonished herself. _You have to stop_.

But she didn't stop.

This had to happen. Now.

Carlton, whatever his sincere personal misgivings, was apparently able to get past them under her continued and persistent bad influence. He hiked up her skirt while her hand was busy inside his pants, tugged her panties out of the way, and before too long they were doing that thing they shouldn't do.

And it was good.

With her legs locked around him, his mouth devouring hers to keep them both relatively silent, that thing they _really_ weren't supposed to be doing got well and truly done.

It was foolish, unprofessional and undoubtedly tacky.

But, oh, oh, oh, oh, Juliet thought dimly, it was _damned_ _deliciously_ good.

He kissed her harder, deeper, as she went over the brink; the table edge hit the wall repeatedly but it wasn't so loud—she hoped—as to attract attention from outside the room, and really, at this point it just didn't matter, did it?

Nothing mattered except being with him, and she couldn't believe the years she'd wasted getting to this point.

He rested his head on her shoulder as he recovered. Juliet clung to him, breathing hard, hearing his equally labored breaths as the fading waves of pleasure bathed them both.

"No thinking," she whispered.

"No point," he said roughly, and kissed her again with force, half-melting her with the heat of it.

She was glad he felt the same way.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Four o'clock.

Lassiter spotted the address, made a mental connection, verified it and barked out, "O'Hara! I've got something!"

She spun in her chair and got up to come see his screen, but was stopped by one of the other detectives for a moment about another case.

He took a breath as he watched her, still in a state of post-coital shock.

No regrets, though; he was going to try to take Mac's words to heart. Okay, Mac probably didn't intend for him to schtup Juliet at work, but the point was. The point was.

The _point_ was, God, she was irresistible. He'd put both of their jobs on the line down there in Observation, but… his mind wandered. So soft, pliant and sexy. So freakin' desirable. She was killing him just standing there discussing blood spatter results with Reynolds.

_Yeah, Mac_, he said, _you can be sure I'm not running away from this. _Ever.

Finally Juliet was free, and came to join him at his desk. "What is it?"

Her hair was still a little mussed from earlier; she'd made quick repairs in the ladies room and advised him to check his face and neck for lipstick and love bites. He made himself concentrate.

"This warehouse employee, Keith Maxwell, shares the same address as one Allie Orson, who works for Hughes & Fenner." He grinned at Juliet. "Would you like to know what position Ms. Orson holds?"

Juliet smiled widely. "If you tell me she works the reception desk alongside our friend Meredith, I'll be a very happy cop."

"I hope it's always that easy to make you happy," he said, and enjoyed the look she gave him. "Maxwell isn't assigned to warehouse inventory per se but he's been on staff for four years. Easy to imagine he knows how to track shipments and storage locations of said shipments."

She was quite pleased. "Good eyes, partner. Who do we want to talk to first?"

"Oh, I'm feeling magnanimous, partner. I say we bring them all in—including Meredith—and have a party."

Juliet glanced at her watch. "Now, or tomorrow morning?"

"Tomorrow morning. Actually, let's talk to Scott and Brett Tanner first. They should be able to shed some light on this, because even if Spencer's right and Brett's not involved, _someone_ gave our fake aliens the security code to Galway's house."

"Now, or tomorrow morning?" she repeated.

"Tomorrow morning. I have plans tonight."

She gave him a sharp look. "They'd better be with me, Lassiter."

Lassiter knew he was smirking, but she didn't seem to mind. "Who the hell else would spend time with me?"

"Stop that crap," she warned.

"Stopped." He smiled. It felt real. She was real. This was real.

Juliet smiled back, and that was all he needed.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	8. Chapter 8: Questions

**CHAPTER EIGHT: QUESTIONS**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

"So let's talk about that big Glock of yours," Juliet purred, and Carlton laughed against her throat.

It was past two a.m. and there had been no real sleep for either of them beyond catnaps, and everything seemed so funny and sexy and lust-inducing. Juliet stroked his face and ran her fingers through his hair and he suckled on her lower lip, one lean leg between hers and his arms enclosing her.

"It has a silencer," he said, and they both laughed. Juliet pushed him onto his back and lay atop him. "Damn, it's going to be hard to work tomorrow."

"Did you say _hard_?"

"Mmmm, hard, yes," he agreed, "although I'm not sure what'll be left of me by dawn."

Juliet loved him like this: comfortable, flirtatious, relaxed. Accepting. He had found his place to stand—for now—and she thanked God it happened to be in her arms.

His hands traveled down her back, to the curve of her hips, and she shifted to fit atop him even better. The same hands which could grab a perp and cuff him before he knew he was under arrest had been doing such marvelously wicked things to her, alternating between relentless and gentle.

"I always knew you'd be a wonderful lover," she whispered.

"I always wanted to make love to you," he whispered back, and she kissed him, trailing her tongue across his.

But she had to know. "Where did you go today? Did you go off to obsess about this?"

Carlton looked sheepish. "Yeah. You know me, O'Hara. I can't… nothing is simple for me where women are concerned."

"I'm not 'women,'" she said archly.

"No, you are not." He kissed her soundly. "I got some good advice from a bartender."

Juliet felt better already. "Was it Mac at Flanagan's?"

Carlton was surprised. "Yes. You know him?"

"Anyone who's been to Flanagan's knows Mac, but no, I don't know him." She realized she'd better back away from this. She wasn't ready to tell him what she'd overheard, and was pretty sure she might never be ready. If Carlton found out, he was likely to start questioning her sincerity—or at the very least the depth of her feelings, given their apparent (to him) timing, and since she had yet to tell him what those feelings were, it would do no good to confuse the issue for him so dramatically.

No, he had to be sure of her.

Like she was sure of him.

_Hmm, maybe I could arrange for him to overhear _me_ in a public place_. She smiled, and he asked her what she was smiling about. She told him she liked his big ears, kissed them to prove it, and somehow they both got swept away again… imagine that.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter lay awake, thinking that this—her head on his chest, her soft arm across his stomach, her leg curled over his—was the sweetest of ways to not sleep. She was doing fine, her breathing even, and she seemed comfortable draped across him, and God knows he loved it.

He kept thinking of what she'd said last night. "_It's you_."

The look in her eyes. The quality of her voice. The words. "_It's you_."

Was there a negative interpretation of that?

There could be if you were being named as a killer, or chosen as a hostage, or identified as the source of a bad smell, but in the context of making love to a woman about to reach orgasm, "_it's you_" didn't have a lot of negative connotations.

Not that he couldn't find them if there were; he was after all Carlton Lassiter, the head detective of the Santa Barbara Police Department and over-analyzer extraordinaire.

Still… he was _pretty_ sure he wasn't the source of any bad smells at the time, he knew he wasn't suspected of murder, and if he was being taken hostage by Juliet, well, bring it on.

In the darkness, he smiled. If she agreed to marry him someday, he would ask Mac to be his best man.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

"Allie Orson," Carlton said with somewhat of a flourish, "let's not waste each other's time."

Juliet was seated at the table across from the thin-faced, dark-eyed young woman who had shushed Meredith David at Hughes & Fenner. Carlton was leaning against the interrogation room wall, cool and collected. One would never guess he hadn't slept more than a few hours in the past two nights, or that Juliet was the only person who knew why. Or how he tasted, or how he sounded when he was about to—

_Uhhh_… _knock it off, O'Hara!_

Allie didn't look _quite_ sullen, but she was close. "I don't want to waste anyone's time, Detective."

Carlton took the seat next to Juliet. "Miss Orson, it's been a long complicated week. And I'll be honest with you: I'm tired of John Galway. I'm tired of his calls to the mayor, I'm tired of the mayor's calls to my chief, and I'm tired of my chief yelling at me for not getting this completely stupid-ass case wrapped up. I want this to go away, and I want it to go away fast."

"I don't know what that has to do with me."

Juliet recognized Carlton's sigh and felt a little sorry for the girl. (But _only_ a little, because she agreed with him completely.) "It has everything to do with you, Allie."

She hesitated. "That doesn't seem likely."

"You share a residence with Keith Maxwell?" Carlton asked, seeming bored.

"Yes. He's my boyfriend."

"And Keith Maxwell works for a warehousing outfit over in Thousand Oaks?"

"Yes." Her face seemed to get thinner.

"And from that warehouse, three boxes containing a total of forty-eight deck prisms were recently stolen, right?"

"I wouldn't know anything about that." She folded her arms across her chest.

"Uh-huh." Carlton leaned back in his chair, glancing at Juliet. "So of course you know nothing about forty-_two_ of those prisms turning up in John Galway's attic."

"That's right. I don't know anything about John Galway's attic at all." Her tone had grown a touch defiant.

"Interesting. I suppose it's pointless to ask you about gazing ball thefts from three garden supply outlets, then."

Allie deliberately uncrossed her arms, taking a deep breath. "Yes. It _is_ pointless, because I don't know anything."

Juliet nodded as if she were sympathetic, which she wasn't. "See, Allie, what you have to understand is that so far, most of this is small potatoes. A broken window, minor vandalism to a yard, nuisance calls to the police department—"

"What? _What_ nuisance calls?"

_That_ got her attention? Juliet sighed.

"She's talking about the ones from the mayor," Carlton said flatly. "Look, Miss Orson, the sooner you admit to your involvement in this 'caper,' the sooner we can get on with our lives. Don't make us get what we need from Keith and Meredith and the Tanners." He smiled. It wasn't warm. "Seriously? Don't."

Allie, who didn't know Carlton, tried to stare him down.

But one of the many things she therefore didn't know about him is that Detective Carlton Lassiter never blinked. _Ever_.

His blue gaze was cold and implacable and Juliet timed how long it took for Allie to say, "I'd like a lawyer."

Seven seconds. Huh. Juliet would have pegged her to make it nine or ten at least.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

"Keith Maxwell," Juliet said pleasantly; this time Lassiter was seated and she was leaning against the wall, and he thought she looked damned good for having been awake nearly all night letting him do wicked things to her lovely, delicious body.

_Focus_, _Lassiter_.

"You've worked at the warehouse for several years now," Juliet was saying. "What's your actual position?"

Keith looked a bit like Allie—dark, thin, quiet—but whereas she aimed for near-sullen, he was merely neurotic. "Um, scheduling mostly."

"Personnel scheduling, or shipment scheduling?"

"Um, personnel. And I work in the mailroom too sometimes. I'm kind of a floater."

Lassiter studied him. Gofer, more likely, but with four years in, he must be at least moderately useful—and 'floaters' tended to know lots of things about lots of departments by sheer necessity. "_Um_, what access do you have to warehouse inventory information?"

Keith looked nervous. "I don't have any reason to access that."

"Not what I asked, is it?" He tapped his folder with a pen. "Having access, and having a _reason_ to access, are different things entirely."

Juliet cleared her throat, and Lassiter knew she was making her move. "So is it fair to say Allie's the boss in your relationship?"

This earned her a resentful glare from Keith. "No. We're equals."

"Oh good," she said cheerfully. "That'll make it easy when we do up the arrest reports."

Lassiter bit back a laugh at Keith's look of horror. "Maxwell, it's like this. We can see Allie's got the control here. She probably strong-armed you into providing the prisms, or at least access to the prisms, and no," he said when Keith started to speak, "I will _not_ let you pretend you don't know what prisms I'm talking about. I'm not saying you had anything to do with the rest of it—the gazing ball thefts, the broken window, the vandalism, the ridiculous littering. I'm just asking you to tell us what you know."

Juliet sat next to him and smiled encouragingly at Keith. "Come on. We're not investigating the warehouse thefts. That's a matter for the Thousand Oaks police department. But linking you to the prisms, since you're linked to Allie, links _Allie_ to the prisms, and there's really no way it's possible that you two plus the prisms don't equal trespassing in John Galway's house. And _that's_ what we're trying to resolve."

"I was never in his house!" he protested. "I don't even know the man."

Lassiter looked at Juliet. "Huh. I wonder if one of the things stolen from the warehouse might have been some kind of portable industrial lighting. You know, something which could be set up outside a kitchen window at a particular time—say, 10:13—and then removed quickly."

"That's very interesting," she said brightly. "I think I'll call the warehouse and find out—"

"Okay! Okay!" Keith put his face in his hands for a moment. "_I_ don't know anything. I don't. But I… I think I should…"

Lassiter muttered, "Wait for iiiit…."

"I think I should call a lawyer."

Juliet rolled her eyes. "All this trouble they went to just to make Galway crazy, and no one wants to take credit for succeeding."

"I'm starting to think this was really about making _me_ crazy," he said in Keith's direction. Keith only looked seasick.

Following her out of the room and into Observation, where she immediately closed the door, Lassiter pinned her up against it to kiss her, because three hours since the last kiss was much too long and besides, how was he supposed to resist her when she had that look in her eyes?

Juliet wouldn't let him step back right away; her mouth was insistent and irresistible and damn if they didn't fit together perfectly. "We have to go to your place at lunch," she said urgently. "It's closer."

He was already in the mood, but it wasn't even eleven yet. "Done," he agreed, nuzzling a trail from her chin to the hollow of her throat, and Juliet rubbed against him enticingly. "I can show you that big Glock you were asking about."

She laughed with delight, and this helped get them back to normal. "Okay, so now we talk to Meredith."

"She'll break," he said confidently, brushing a stray tendril of soft hair off her cheek. "Take a bet as to how long?"

Juliet's eyes gleamed. "How long is _what_, sailor?"

Lassiter grinned, and kissed her once more for good measure.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Meredith Forrest was the healthiest, happiest suspect of the trio so far, but even she seemed a bit nervous. Juliet gave her a kind smile, because she could fake it with the best of them, and sat across from her in a non-threatening manner.

Carlton had agreed to tone down his menace-factor and try to convince her they were all 'friends.' Juliet had made him blush by reminding him of Meredith's comment about his nice eyes.

_Go with it_, she'd advised. _Use all the tools at your disposal_. Of course then he'd been obliged to make a remark about also showing her what was in his _tool_box over lunch, and it had taken a moment for her to stop giggling.

"Meredith, you seem to have a lot of loyalty to Scott Tanner."

She nodded. "All the Tanners, really. They're a very nice family. Scott's wife has been very sweet to me and Brett's like a younger brother."

"That's good. It must have been disappointing to see John Galway treat Scott badly, especially with the financial repercussions."

"Well… yes. But there was nothing _I_ could do about it."

"Oh, of course not," Juliet assured her. "What _could_ you do? Galway was a partner with clout and he was going to have his way."

"Exactly." Meredith futzed with the chain around her neck.

"But one thing you _could_ do, with a little help, is maybe mess with Galway a little."

Meredith looked up sharply. "What? No. What do you mean? I would never do anything to—"

Carlton walked to the end of the table, looking _fairly_ neutral. "You would never do anything to hurt Galway? Is that what you were going to say? You would never do anything to hurt _anyone_." He gave her a small smile, and Juliet, judging by Meredith's expression, knew his big blues were working.

"No, I wouldn't. I'm… I'm a nice person." Her voice was smaller, and she looked away from his compelling gaze with seemingly great effort.

"And you _didn't_ hurt anyone, so that's good. That's all very good, Meredith." He sat down, and she couldn't help but look at him (Juliet knew the feeling).

There was a pause, and finally Meredith said, "So… does this mean I can go?"

"Not hardly," Juliet said dryly. "So far you and Allie and Keith have all claimed innocence, and that can only mean one thing. Partner?"

Carlton said, "Right. It means we're left with the Tanners."

"Wait!" Meredith exclaimed. "What do you mean? The Tanners had nothing to with anything."

He smiled, and Juliet had a feeling Meredith suddenly didn't think his eyes were nice so much as ice. "Did John Galway tell you his house security code?"

"Of course not! Why would he do that?"

"Did he tell Allie or Keith? No? Well, we _know_ he told Scott Tanner. And whoever set out to drive Galway bonkers had that code. If you and Allie and Keith are innocent angels, who's left holding the bag?" He got up, and Juliet started to push her own chair back.

"Wait! No! No, no, no—it's not like that. It's not!"

"Brett Tanner was pretty hard hit by his dad's demotion. What did you tell us? Two part-time jobs and scrambling for scholarships just to stay in school? It's easy to see how he might want at least a little mind-game revenge. O'Hara, do we have a copy of his schedule? Shame to have to pull him out of class for questioning."

"Be more of a shame if he had to drop out to do jail time or community service," Juliet said sadly.

Meredith hit the table with her fists, quite anxious now. "Stop! Listen to me. Brett and Scott had nothing to do with any of this. I swear."

"Then tell us who did, Meredith," Juliet insisted. "Because, see, John Galway and his cousin the mayor really want it all to stop. I doubt the mayor cares who did it, so if we tell them the only viable suspects are the Tanners, he'll encourage us to move forward with all due speed."

She burst into tears. "Do I need a lawyer?"

"Crap on a cracker," Carlton snapped. "You people are tiresome." He went to the door, but once his hand was on the knob, Meredith spoke rapidly.

"I think I'm going to be sick. Could I use the restroom?"

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter was not at all surprised to love Juliet being in his bed.

With Meredith temporarily sidelined—but willing to talk once her stomach settled—he and Juliet had unabashedly lit out for his place. They had a good forty-five minutes, and incidentally, they had a _damned_ good forty-five minutes.

Amazing how quickly you can shed clothes when time is of the essence.

But then, it was amazing how time could slow itself down when it counted, and he treasured each moment of this lunch-less lunch hour.

Actually, it was impressive they'd gotten to the bedroom at all; Juliet had made an impassioned plea for the sofa because it was five seconds closer, but he insisted their first time in his apartment was going to be in his bed proper.

Though there was damn little 'proper' about what went on there.

After, Juliet wandered around barefoot in her undies, checking out his closet and cupboards, looking, she said cheerfully, for signs of madness.

"Madness? You mean _other_ than risking both our careers by secretly having wild, mindless and incredibly hot sex with my beautiful, wonderful, sex-kitten partner?"

"That's not madness," she admonished. "It's only ill-advised, unprofessional, and a threat to our jobs." She grinned. "And thanks, by the way."

Lassiter laughed, and almost told her he loved her right then. "We need to talk about that, you know. The threat to our jobs part."

Juliet returned to sit on the edge of the bed, stroking his bare leg. "Well, I guess we'd better quit making out at work."

"You _guess_?"

"Never say never," she teased. "Why do you have four shelves of lightbulbs?"

"Because those damn CFL bulbs suck! I'm holding on to incandescent lights as long as I can."

"Forty-watts? Who uses forty-watt bulbs?"

"They work great, and if it's dim, I'll buy extra lamps," he retorted, and she scooted up to kiss him. He stopped being able to think shortly thereafter.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

_[Another short one (blame Lawson227)… and 9 will be the finale.]_


	9. Chapter 9: Answers All

**CHAPTER NINE: ANSWERS ALL**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Meredith, nervous, and Allie, cranky, sat side by side in Interrogation A.

Chief Vick stood with Carlton and Juliet in Observation, studying the two young women. "You wouldn't rather talk to Meredith separately? She might be more forthcoming on her own."

"She might," Juliet agreed, "but we'd like Allie to show her true colors, and the best way to do that is to take some of her control away." She wished Vick wasn't standing so close to the table. The, er, _sex table_. She glanced over her shoulder at it and Vick followed her gaze, puzzled. Juliet hoped like hell she wasn't blushing.

Seeing nothing on the table (and since thankfully the aura of iniquity wasn't visible to the naked eye), Vick merely inquired, "Where are their lawyers?"

"Allie changed her mind, and Meredith's still dreaming of rainbows and ponies." Carlton flipped open the folder in his hand. "Allie Orson turns out to have a record. Four years ago she was involved in a college prank which didn't end well." Yet his tone, somehow, held grudging respect. "She and three other students blew up a giant squirrel."

"Come again?" Vick asked while Juliet laughed.

"It was in a parade over in Ojai. They said it should have been harmless but parts of the now-_flying_ squirrel took out windows in a nearby office building and beaned a couple of onlookers in the process." He gave Allie a curious look suggesting maybe he could relate to her after all. "Says here the tail knocked a mime down a storm drain."

Juliet couldn't help but laugh—not at the fate of the mime (okay, maybe a little), but at the unmistakable (if muted) admiration Carlton now had for Allie. Even Vick seemed amused as she gestured to them to go in and get started.

"Miss Orson, Miss Forrest," Carlton said perfunctorily as he and Juliet seated themselves opposite the two 'hardened criminals.'

Juliet thought it was no mistake his foot touched hers briefly under the table, but with Vick no doubt watching from Observation, there was no repeat, and their chairs were a respectable distance apart.

"We'll get to the point," Juliet said. "We think you planned and implemented every act of pointless intrusion into John Galway's home and property. We're also pretty sure the Tanners were involved in some way. But since you can probably save us some time, and yourselves some trouble, we thought we'd start with you."

Meredith was already holding one hand up in protest. "Wait. I told you I'd explain everything."

"Meredith," muttered Allie. "Don't be stupid."

"Oh, come on, Allie." She faced Juliet. "Yes. We did it."

"Meredith!" Allie snapped. "Shut up."

Meredith glared at her. "Fine, then, _I _did it. I planned everything. I did all of it with no help, and certainly without Scott and Brett's help."

Allie rolled her eyes. "Like anyone's going to believe that."

"I might," Carlton said conversationally. "Why not? If you weren't up to the task, no reason Meredith can't have all the glory."

"She just wants to keep the Tanners out of trouble," Allie said with derision. "It's not like _she_ could orchestrate anything more complicated than scheduling an appointment with a client. On a _slow_ day," she added.

Meredith promptly swatted her on the arm. "You shut up, you harpie. You know I—" At Carlton's raised eyebrow, she subsided and faced Juliet again. "We just wanted a little payback for what John did to Scott. That's all."

"What's Keith's involvement in this?" asked Juliet.

"Nothing," Allie said at once. "He didn't do anything and you just leave him alone!"

Carlton smoothly opened the folder. "Says here, in your file…"

"You have a _file_?" Meredith was wide-eyed.

Allie remained grimly silent.

"… that one of the students arrested with you four years ago was a K.J. Maxwell. He ended up not being charged, but he was there. Sooo… I can't help but think he might have been in on this, too."

"You have to admit it'd be a pretty big coincidence for prisms stolen from his warehouse to turn up in Galway's place without Keith knowing anything. Unless you have some sort of illegal access to their computer system." Juliet smiled. "And we'd be _happy_ to discuss that."

"What were you arrested for?" Meredith persisted, but Allie wouldn't meet her gaze.

"Homicide," Carlton said briskly.

"What!" Allie was about to get on her feet but a warning look from Carlton settled her back down. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You did murder a giant squirrel," he drawled.

"It wasn't a real squirrel," Juliet explained to Meredith, who was about to pop.

Carlton shook his head. "Though I gotta say—"

"No, Carlton, you really don't." Juliet glanced at him, and knew he didn't miss her little smile. "Anyway, the point is—"

"All right!" Allie shouted. "I talked Keith into giving us the information about the damn prisms. He didn't do anything else, though. Not one thing."

Meredith was both relieved and sick. "The rest of it was us."

"And Brett?"

"No! I keep telling you, he had nothing to do with this."

"Oh, come on, you didn't just pull that security code out of your butt. Uh… sorry," he said, having the grace to look a touch embarrassed.

"Sure she did," Allie said sarcastically. "She's so talented at everything else."

Meredith nearly snarled, "Oh, shut up. Like being a bitch is really working out for _you_."

_Meredith got game_, Juliet thought. "Here's what I think."

"I don't care what you think," Allie interrupted. "We got the code from Brett, but he didn't know what we were going to do with it."

Meredith put her head in her hands, sighing. "I'm going to be sick."

Allie moved her chair further away. "Tell them, dumb-butt."

"I love girl fights," Carlton said dryly. "They're so classy."

"Oh, they're rookies," Juliet assured him.

"Okay, we were really upset about what John did to Scott. I told you that." Meredith sat up, composing herself. "We were talking to Brett one day and said we wished we could somehow give John a taste of his own medicine. He said the only thing he wanted to do was get into his house and paint everything orange because John loves blue so much. He kinda laughed about his dad having the code from a few years ago and how he'd never had the nerve to try it out himself. He found it on a notepad in his dad's home office."

Juliet studied both girls, trying to figure out if this was true. "Scott said Galway told him he changed the code. Galway said so too."

Allie curled her lip. "John Galway is the most rigid, unbending, change-hating robot there ever was. The minute Brett rattled off that code, I knew there was no way he'd ever changed it."

"We made a dry run a few weeks ago." Meredith was twisting at her sleeves again. "After Miss Sharpshooter here took out the streetlight with her brother's BB gun."

For the first time, Allie smiled, but it was still grim. "Worked like a charm. And worth it, before you ask. _So_ worth it. The whole thing."

"Then came the master plan?" asked Carlton. "To drive him nuts?"

Meredith nodded. "Prisms because he's obsessed with the sea, blue gazing balls because of the color. The numbers because he's—"

"—an ass," Allie finished. "So yeah. There you go. Like I said, it was worth it. Watching that cold-hearted butthead about to have a breakdown was way more fun than I ever dreamed it would be."

Juliet thought there might be more. "And the Tanners knew nothing?"

"I swear. To God. No."

"We _couldn't_ tell them anything!" Meredith insisted. "Brett's had a hard enough time anyway and the last thing we wanted was to jeopardize his scholarships and academic standing. And Scott's just so nice and he's worked so hard to get back from where John put him that we didn't want to involve him at all."

"They talked to you about what was happening, though, right?"

"You know what? I don't think they did." Carlton tilted his dark head and studied Allie carefully. "How did you know what effect you were having on Galway?"

She looked uncertain. "Scott told us."

"Really? He gave two receptionists all the details of his neighbor's problems?" He turned to Meredith. "Did Brett stop by and mention what was going on?"

"Of course. I mean, he told us what his dad said after John talked to him."

_Interesting_, Juliet thought. Even Meredith seemed a bit uncertain now. She looked over at Carlton, whose frown was reminiscent of the way he looked when he knew someone was lying, and knew how to prove it, but couldn't believe he was going to have to make the effort.

Slowly, he pushed Allie's file to where Juliet could see it, and tapped a section of the page.

She read silently, and made the connection, while the two young women frowned at this delay. "You're part-time at Hughes & Fenner, Allie?"

"Yeah, thirty hours a week. I'm in grad school."

"You took a four-year break?"

"People do that sometimes."

"You're going for a Ph.D in, oh look here, psychology." Juliet smiled.

"So?" But Allie's casual question didn't match her guarded expression.

Carlton said, very deliberately, "I bet that if we went over to Galway's house right now, we wouldn't just find gazing balls, prisms, confetti and painted grass. I bet we'd find something _else_ he didn't put there himself. Would you take that bet, Allie?"

She blinked; Meredith looked at her nervously.

He waited a moment, expectant, dark eyebrows way up, blue eyes fixed on her relentlessly. "No? Too bad. O'Hara, let's send a team over there to find the cameras Allie planted so she could watch Galway's reactions directly and also collect data for her coursework."

Meredith was shocked. "What? Allie, you put cameras in his house? What's wrong with you? That is so illegal!"

"Shut up!" Allie rubbed her temples hard, reminding Juliet of Carlton when he was especially aggravated. "Like stealing gazing balls and deck prisms _isn't_ illegal!"

"Don't forget shooting out streetlights," Carlton added helpfully.

Juliet asked him with faux innocence, "Shouldn't we also send a team to _Allie's_ place to collect her computer and the video footage?"

"Son of an ever-lovin' bitch," Allie snapped, which also reminded Juliet of Carlton. (She set aside for now the possibility that she was love-addled enough for even toast to remind her of Carlton.)

"So that's a yes to… let's see… oh yeah, _everything_," he said sardonically. "Okay, ladies, let's take it from the top."

"Wait." Meredith seemed anxious. "I would really _really_ like to know about the squirrel."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Arrests were made, reports were filed. Incidentally, a thumbprint found on the bottom of the vase in the actual _murder_ they'd been half-investigating while dealing with the Galway nonsense turned out to match one of the suspects in that case, so things were definitely looking up work-wise.

And Juliet was beautiful when she was keying in reports.

The last pieces of information the girls provided were that it was Allie who shinnied up to the roof, having learned a few climbing tricks from her bud Brett Tanner, and left behind the purple fiber. All they'd done at 10:13 that night was shine the light (Meredith) and break the window (Allie); the prisms were already in the house (hidden during a previous foray), and as soon as Galway fled and they were sure he hadn't called the cops, they used the code to re-enter, placed the prisms among the shards of glass, giggled (well, Meredith admitted to giggling; Allie just rolled her eyes), and ran off to get hammered (Allie).

Juliet was also beautiful when she was passing by his desk on her way to Booking, casting a slow and promising smile his way.

It had taken a few weeks to collect the gazing balls, work out the 'crop circle' plan, and acquire enough numbers to cover the front lawn. Allie kept saying it was worth it. Lassiter suspected she had backup copies of the video she'd recorded, but he didn't care enough to force her to turn them in. Galway had annoyed him too much.

Juliet dropped a file on his desk and brushed his forearm casually without anyone seeing, sending his senses rocketing back to their lunch break.

Lassiter left it to Chief Vick to notify Galway about the arrests; it went without saying that the cold little dork would be pressing charges, but Lassiter wasn't concerned about this either. He had the signed confessions, and the alien confetti crap was over. Besides, these charges weren't going to amount to much and neither girl was likely to do time. Unless the mayor made a stink about it, the girls would make restitution and move on. Whether Hughes & Fenner felt they would continue to make good receptionists was not Lassiter's business, and anyway, there _should_ be consequences to criminal activity, no matter how well-intentioned… or how ridiculous.

What was on his mind now was Juliet, tonight, and the talk which _had_ to come between.

She followed him to his place and into his apartment, sank into his arms for a lovely long kiss, and was very surprised (so was he, and kind of impressed with himself for possessing the required fortitude) when he set her away from him, led her to the sofa, and made her sit at the far end while he took the armchair.

He turned on the lamp by the chair and took off his tie. "We have to talk."

She nodded, slipped her shoes off, and got comfortable.

But now he was silent. So much for his big plan. Plus now he was remembering her bare feet sliding up his calves.

"Carlton?" she prompted.

"Look, I know you're a—" He stopped. He couldn't say 'nice person.' She was, but she would take it the wrong way. "Are you on the rebound from Spencer?" Crap. Why the hell had he said that?

Juliet blinked. "No."

"You're sure?" Crap! Why was he _allowed_ to talk?

"Yes, I'm sure. Carlton, why would you think that? Honestly, I was getting over Shawn while I was still with him, and don't forget, I'm the one who broke it off."

He noted her frown, and regretted having caused it. "It's just that of all people to give me a chance, it makes sense that it'd be you, but I don't understand why, after all these years, _now_ you're— " Again he stopped.

"There's really no 'now' about it," she said softly.

Well, he had no idea what to say to that, so he changed tack. "We're partners, and we can't be discovered to be in a relationship. I mean if this is a relationship. I don't want to… presume."

"We had sex at work," she pointed out. "I can't imagine doing that with anyone I wasn't in a relationship with."

"Did you and Spencer ever—oh, God, don't answer that," he said, horrified. "Damn, I'm sorry, please don't—dammit, I'm such an _ass_!"

Juliet was smiling. "You're not an ass. Okay, sometimes you are, a little. But to answer the question, no. And I'm only answering it because I want you to understand that none of this is typical for me—you're not just some guy, okay?"

"Then what am I?" he asked quietly.

She looked at him for a long time, and he wanted to feel hope but didn't dare.

"Juliet," he persisted. "I _know_ what a bad catch I am. I'm the one who gets thrown back in the water. Sometimes with a scream. I don't want you to—you don't have to—hell, I don't know what I'm saying."

Shaking her head, she whispered, "I am _never_ throwing you back in the water, Carlton."

He stood up abruptly and pulled his jacket and holster off, but she didn't move, staring up at him with those perceptive eyes. "The other night. Our first night. You said something." He sat down again, restless and unsettled.

"I said a lot of things, if you count orgasmic babblings."

Crap, like he needed _that_ memory in his head to distract him. "You said, 'it's you.'"

Juliet smiled. "Out loud?"

"At a crucial moment," he said, but he didn't mean it to be funny.

Still she smiled. "Ah. I thought it was only in my head." She paused, and then added matter-of-factly, "Give me four negative adjectives to describe yourself."

Lassiter wasn't expecting the lane shift. Full of surprises, Juliet O'Hara. "Negative? You need _reminding_ of my negative qualities?"

"Yes." She sat up a little and took off her jacket, and set her gun on his end table. "I know you're not wonderful 24/7 but right now all the ways you can piss me off seem pretty inconsequential."

"Fair enough." And thank God for that. He tilted his head back, relaxing some, because the main problem here was keeping the list down to _only_ four. "Paranoid, socially awkward, hostile, prick."

"Prick is a noun."

"Take it or leave it."

"Prick it is," she said smartly. "Okay, what I meant that night was that I realized you—Carlton Lassiter, a paranoid, socially awkward, hostile prick—were…" She hesitated. "What I'd been _waiting_ for. All this time. It was you."

He must have misheard. "Come again?" Not that he would be able to hear her answer, what with his heart pounding like a marching band drum operated by a gorilla on Benzedrine.

Juliet got up, crossed over to him, and deposited herself gently in his lap before whispering in his ear. "You are the one, Carly. _It's you_."

For a long moment they just stared at each other—blue to blue, searching.

Then his heart took over, and though he was never sure, after, how exactly it happened so fast, they were somehow entangled on the sofa making love, surrounded by discarded clothing.

He was alive and yet on fire; burning and yet so damn happy. He pressed himself to her and she pressed back and they melded their bodies together in this sudden rise of passion, and he couldn't get deeply enough inside of her, body and soul, but he did his best.

He was almost to the brink, almost… Juliet was looking up at him with utter YES in her beautiful blue-gray eyes… when he told her he loved her. Twice.

And then he was gone, gone with her over the edge into a place of pure sensation and needs fulfilled.

When he came back to his senses, he knew with clarity that he'd said those words.

And in the moments before she spoke, he was glad he had and knew it (almost) didn't matter whether she loved him back. What mattered is that he'd told her, because it was true, and he didn't want to hide behind his uncertainty anymore. Not with her.

What she said, when she did speak, was simple.

His name, plus three more words.

Well, four, because she stuck a 'too' on the end.

And then she couldn't stop kissing him. His mouth, his face, his temples, his throat, his shoulders. She was covering him with kisses and he was murmuring to her, holding her, and she couldn't seem to stop. But he _knew_ the feeling; the urgency—he loved her skin and her scent and her eyes and her lips and her teeth and everything else, all points south, all of them.

He said, "Easy, girl, I'm not going anywhere," and rolled her onto her side so he could bring her fully to him.

She sighed, and the sound of it against his chest left him unutterably content.

"I love you," she said again, dreamily.

He felt damned dreamy himself. "But _why_?"

Juliet laughed. "Why do you love _me_?"

"Why wouldn't I? _You're_ wonderful," he said, and he meant it. She was wonderful. She'd been wonderful every day of every year he'd known her, even on the days she hadn't been terribly wonderful at all.

"So are you."

"Not true. Not even close to true. So far from true, it can't even _see_ true. If it could see true, it wouldn't even understand what it was, that's how far—" he stopped when she put her fingers over his mouth.

"You're wonderful to me," she said seriously. "And I'll explain all the reasons why over the next few years."

"Years," he repeated.

"Decades. Are you going to kvetch about that, too?"

"What about work?" he persisted.

"Apart from this week, we are both capable of behaving professionally, and we will." She turned pink. "I still can't believe what we did in Observation."

Neither could he, but it had been spectacular. "So you want to just… be discreet?"

"For as long as we can, and the minute we think someone suspects, we'll go to Vick, and if she tries to separate us, we'll—well, we'll deal with it when it happens."

"We'll deal with it," he repeated, "when it _happens_?" Alarms were sounding.

"Yes," she said, glowing with happiness.

"So you're asking me—Carlton Lassiter—to… _wing it_?"

Juliet was delighted. "Yes! Yes, I am!"

"O'Hara, you know me better than that. I don't wing it very well."

"I know! But you'll try?" She kissed him. "I could reassure you on an as-needed basis."

"You'll have to," he said somewhat grimly, but she distracted him by draping her leg over his thigh and nuzzling his ear. "Ahh… yeah… that'll work… mmmm…"

She reassured him long into the evening, and Lassiter's life was officially permanently changed for the better.

And the next time they went to Flanagan's, Mac bought them both a drink.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

**E N D**


End file.
